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. . . or . . . 

Olestcm Railroad Stories 

...blF... 

€. m. swan 



Broadway Publishing Company 
83s Broadway, New Vork 




LIBRARY of OONGRtSS 
Two Copies rtooeived 

APR 6 I9U5 

^ Jopyngni tniry 
CUiSS ^ AAC. Noi ; 


COPYRIGHTED 1905 

BY 

E. W. SWAN 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The Passing of Fireman O’Leary i 

When the Texan was Yardmaster 31 

The Dumb Luck of “Wide-open Jim”.. 45 

The Fate of the 368 61 

The Golden Rule Trainmaster 74 

The Lap-Order at Kenton 85 

That “Spotter” Deal 109 

The Foreman’s Order 117 


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4 


THE PASSING OF FIREMAN O’LEARY. 


‘‘Well, McView, ‘tallow-pot’ evaporated?” 
bellowed the traveling engineer, as he climbed 
on the Woolverton “pusher” engine and scru- 
tinized the interior of the cab with his eagle 
eye. 

The engineer looked surprised, as though 
a ghost had entered the cab. “Naw; I guess 
he is up clearing out the front end, boss.” 

The engineer swung around and nervously 
wiped his oily hands with a bunch of waste, 
muttering under his breath, as his majesty, 
the traveling engineer, turned and looked down 
the left gangway, “That bloomin’ brass collar 
is always koomin’ up when he ain’t wanted.” 

Just then “Buster” O’Leary, fireman, shot 
up the gangway as though he were making a 
center rush on the gridiron, and collided head- 
on Avith the traveling engineer; then, discov- 
ering the impediment, “Buster” offered the 
frosty apology : “Hi, there, stranger ! ’Sense 
me, but this is a poor time for visitors. I’m 
in a trifle of a hurry.” And without further 


2 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

pretensions as to who the ‘‘stranger” was, he 
flung open the porthole to the firebox, and 
began flourishing the scoop, when “the stran- 
ger” roared, with a tinge of contempt in his 
voice : 

“Humph — m ! One might imagine you were 
the boss of the whole blame system. Fd 
like to request that you take a reef in that 
‘trifle’ of a hurry fit you are laboring under 
while I tell you that if I ever catch you with 
such a sloppy, smutty looking cab as this 
again you’ll scorch for it. What in the Sam 
Hill — why, if you’ve run out of waste I’d ad- 
vise you to use your shirt the next time, and 
scour a few layers of grease off that boiler 
head. Your cab windows, the whole bedaubed 
interior, looks like it had been smeared over 
with a fresh coat of lubricating oil.” 

The man with the authority proceeded to 
hand poor “Buster” such a bunch of compli- 
ments that the fireman felt himself shrinking 
into a Tom Thumb. A significant nudge from 
the engineer extinguished “Buster’s” wrath, 
and was a forerunner of his conception that 
the “stranger” he was shoving in the clear 
was the traveling engineer himself. At first 
the fireman was too awestruck to speak, but 
the monster proceeded to rake him over the 
coals until O’Leary offered the rebuttal: 
“Well, say, now, captain, I just now took this 
engine. ’Tain’t my fault that she ain’t like 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 3 

a bandbox. Jump on to the fellow who had it 
before ” 

“What do you mean by leaving that firebox 
open all this time?” pointing to the open fire- 
box. “Don’t you know that you’ve let enough 
cold air in there to warp the crown sheet?” 
stormed the official with a voice like an ex- 
ploding safety valve. And “Buster,” in his ef- 
fort to supplant grievances, banged the iron 
door with a vengeance. When he looked 
around again the most unwelcome “stranger” 
had disappeared. 

As soon as he was out of hearing the en- 
gineer ushered in a low whistle. “Guess you’ll 
know that guy the next time he calls.” 

“Buster” just donned a sickly grin. “I like 
to bio wed my job. I never knew that was the 
man with the ‘atherity’ or I’d been more so- 
ciable like.” “Buster” was one of the fated sort 
of fellows — one of the kind who is always 
“caught with a fork in his pocket when it is 
raining soup.” The Woolverton pusher run 
was the first preferred trick “Buster’s” senior- 
ity won since he was promoted to fireman, 
and such a chilly welcome! “Buster” always 
seemed reconciled to the fateful turns in his 
career. That sickly smile was synonymous of 
another advent of hard luck, and “Buster’s” 
only good luck was that he wore that smile 
nearly all the time. It was that same charac- 
teristic smile that decorated his countenance 


4 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

when ^‘Buster’s” foot was smashed. He then 
was ‘‘pulling pans” at the cinder pits ; the 
same peevish grin that trimmed his Irish mug 
when, at the hospital, the jolly, good-natured 
surgeon squashed the foot back into shape 
and vowed that O’Leary was the pluckiest 
chap he ever handled, because he refused to 
take chloroform, preferring that heroic “grin- 
and-bear-it” measure. After the operation he 
patted O’Leary on the shoulder in a warm, 
fatherlike way, and said : “My boy, you’re 
sheer grit. Your pluck will win some day.” 
And yet “Buster” didn’t take that statement 
to heart, but always did have a kindly feeling 
towards the big-hearted old doctor. The doc- 
tor was the only “higher life” railroad man 
who ever seemed to take any interest in 
“Buster,” and during the week the fireman was 
“laid up” in the hospital ward, the congenial 
gray-haired surgeon always had a cheerful 
word for his patient. 

“Buster” loved to recall those little incidents 
— encouragements. The recollections seemed 
to weld up in his bosom a longing to do some- 
thing heroic and plucky. By the way, the 
breaking of “Buster’s” foot was one of a series 
of accidents that came his way, and was re- 
sponsible for the nickname, “Buster,” which 
entirely supplanted his given name, if he ever 
had one. “Buster” was conscious that he was 
made up of the same kind of warp and woof 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 5 

that constituted heroes, and if he ever got a 
chance it would ^‘tell.” That welding up in 
the bosom to do something great was, in 
“Buster’s” eyes, seriously handicapped because 
he was only an extra fireman. He often fan- 
cied that if he were an engineer or train dis- 
patcher he could grasp the opportunity and 
take a sudden plunge into fame. The story of 
how Chauncey Bleeker, an express messenger 
out of Woolverton, baffled a train robbery; 
how, although facing the business end of a 
revolver, Bleeker swung a lantern across the 
cranium of the robber and knocked him clean 
through the open doorway of the speeding ex- 
press car, was idealistic from “Buster’s” point 
of view. The knockout saved the Wells-Fargo 
from parting company with its little old chest 
of gold, and only cost Bleeker the chink of his 
anatomy which a bullet from the robber’s re- 
volver clipped out of his ear. The gold medal 
the messenger wore as a reminder of his 
bravery was to “Buster” an incentive for he- 
roic accomplishments. 

But those thoughts were only air-castles, and 
when the reality possessed the fireman that he 
was not a contractor and builder in that line, 
the plans and specifications of air-castles van- 
ished, “Buster” just put on that satisfied grin 
— that he was only an extra fireman. 

Again, with as much zeal as fired him at the 
sight of Chauncey Bleeker’s gold medal. 


6 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

“Buster’’ watched the engine men who had 
“pool” runs out of Woolverton, at work every 
day, running up their mileage, swelling their 
pay-checks, busy and happy. But “Buster” 
contented himself that he was the last man on 
the extra board. He daily eyed the shifting 
of the board, as interested as a ward politi- 
cian at election. At times he was “ten times 
out,” “nine times out,” and when his turn 
“first out” came around and he saw on the 
board the name O’Leary and the specified time 
to start, he was “Johnny on the spot,” brim 
full of his work. 

The Woolverton pusher run was the first 
advertised run “Buster” ever ventured to put 
in a bid for, and his appointment to the left 
side of the pusher engine was heralded with 
as much grace as though the superintendent 
had chartered him a special car and a “brass 
collarette,” or had tendered him an opening 
in the fireman’s pool. The two looked about 
even honors to “Buster.” (The required num- 
ber of engine crews with the highest seniority 
constitutes the engine men’s “pool.” These 
crews are the favored crews, and are kept busy 
all the time, while the extra men have to take 
what is left. The extra man’s job is an uncer- 
tain quantity. At times he is busy, and at 
times he has to wait a long time for his “turn 
out.”) 

For his first trip on the pusher, “Buster” 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 7 

had just stepped aboard and conferred with 
his engineer, when the traveling engineer, 
whose “Yes” or “No” means a man’s job, ap- 
peared and filed his colloquy. The traveling 
engineer’s sentiments decidedly ruffled the fire- 
man’s pride. He felt like a cowed Shanghai 
rooster, unjustly cowed. He was big enough 
to throw two like the traveling engineer out of 
the cab window^ but such a thought was only a 
passing fancy. That “atherity,” as “Buster’s” 
Irish called “authority,” was a coat of mail on 
the official, and all concerned knew it. The 
fireman felt it was not his fault that the cab 
windows looked like the cross section of a tal- 
low candle, that the interior was unkempt and 
the “old mill” wasn’t steaming. The blame 
really was an asset of the fireman who super- 
seded “Buster” on the pusher trick. Never- 
theless, next day there was a yellow envelope 
for “Buster” in the engine room letter box. 
It was from the superintendent informing the 
fireman that his record had been decorated 
with a fringe of ten demerit marks — “Brown- 
ies” as they were known by the railroad men 
— because of the traveling engineer episode. 
This was a bigger pill than “Buster” could 
swallow. They were the first “Brownies” 
that ever soiled his record. He scrubbed up, 
and mustering all his reserve force of courage, 
smiled through his grief, took his grievance 


8 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

and the awful yellow letter before the super- 
intendent. 

In the “main guy’s” office he waded into 
such a chilly atmosphere he thought he had 
headed into a refrigerator, yet it was summer- 
time outdoors. Fully five minutes he stood at 
the corner of the superintendent’s roller top, 
waiting for a look of recognition. Finally 
the firm-jawed official’s terse “Well, sir!” was 
the “go ahead” signal, and the fireman very 
timidly laid down his grievance. 

“So you are the Fireman O’Leary who needs 
a few lessons in house cleaning before he will 
make a good fireman, are you?” 

“Buster” stammered a protest, but the “brass 
collar” brushed him clear off the right of way, 
and turning half way around in his chair, 
donned a very pretentious air, and continued : 
“Look here, young man, how long have you 
been firing, anyhow?” 

“Two months,” whispered the frightened 
grievance committee. 

“Huh! Now no doubt you mean all right; 
just don’t know any better,” and, measuring 
his words like a metronome, he added : “Trav- 
eling — Engineer — Bloomington — has — 
been — railroading — for the past thirty 
years,” beating time with his index finger, 
“and if he now needs reproof at the hand of 
a two-month-old fireman, you might put in a 
bid for his job, don’t you think so?” One 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 9 

icy stare, with the “put-that-in-your-pipe-and- 
smoke-it” significance, and the superintendent 
dipped his pen, placed his elbows on his ma- 
hogany, and resumed his work. “Buster’s’’ 
courage failed him, and he decided to back 
down for more fuel, so gave up his case, and 
started for the door feeling as insignificant as 
a boiled potato at an Irish barbecue. “Buster” 
went back to the scoop, that hard-luck smile 
ever playing its role. In fact, “Buster” felt 
so badly that he forgot that the smile was 
there at all. “The first demerit marks” was 
a constant tolling in his ears, and at times he 
tried to think that he did not care if he did 
lose his job. Then when the better side ro- 
tated uppermost, he felt he had a new ambition 
— to get rid of those ten “Brownies” was as 
important as getting a pool, and both were al- 
most out of the question anyhow. 

A week after “Buster” got the donation 
from the traveling engineer he was still on 
the Woolverton pusher. In the meantime a 
new engineer had been assigned to the pusher 
run. He was the latest appendage to the en- 
gineer’s extra board, a new man on the divi- 
sion, yet an “old timer” at railroading; gray- 
headed, erratic, but with a big heart, if one 
was of a nature to reach it. “Buster’s” tem- 
perament was that “happy-go-lucky” nature 
that could get along with anything in the way 
of cranky engineers, and he and his new run- 


10 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

ning mate, ‘‘Dad’' Grossman, ‘"hitched” quite 
pleasantly. 

The Woolverton pusher was an engine run- 
ning between Woolverton and Hampton as 
a “pusher” to every freight train over the 
Runnyby Hill. Woolverton was a mountain- 
district division point and the grade west to 
Hampton was tremendously uphill. In fact, so 
steep was the track that tradition had it, there 
was a runaway train story for every mile post 
between Hampton and Woolverton. Woolver- 
ton was at the foot of the grade and Hamp- 
ton just over the top to the west; Runnyby, 
from which the hill took its name, was a flag 
station that looked like a cliff-dweller’s head- 
quarters, half way between the two. It was 
storied that the first train that ever came down 
the mountain-side ran away, and the half-way 
point was named Runnyby because that train 
passed Runnyby with such lightning-like 
velocity that it probably would be going yet, 
had it not left the track four miles below Run- 
nyby and piled up a frightful ruin — a death- 
trap to as brave an engine crew as ever went 
down with its ship. 

It was an unwritten law that the operator 
at Runnyby must be able to prophesy just what 
time the next runaway train would reach 
there as readily as he could report scheduled 
matter; that at all hours he should have one 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. it 

eye out on the signal board looking for run- 
aways. 

One Tuesday morning of a foggy, damp, 
dismal day the pusher hooked up to boost train 
No. 33, a red ball freight, over the mountain 
grade. The pusher engine. No. 077, was a 
third-class, old-fashioned scrap pile that would 
not make a decent “yard-goat” if foot boards 
were riveted to her. That morning old 077 
behaved meaner than ever. Steam was at a 
premium. The man at the throttle was out 
of sorts, He worried about whether or not 
the sand box was full. Leaning out of his 
cab window he gazed nervously at the slippery 
rails, for they were covered with moisture; 
howled about the low pressure she had on, 
and “Buster” heaved away manfully at the 
scoop. 

“Thirty-three’s” orders at Woolverton read : 
“Make Hampton siding at 9:30. No. 5 close 
in. No. 5 will pass ‘thirty-three’ at Hamp- 
ton.” 

“We’ll have to put this old hulk in the shops 
and have her flues bored out before we make 
another trip with her,” grumbled the engineer. 
“Might as well tack a dead weight onto ‘thir- 
ty-three’s’ tail end. Huh, couldn’t pull a set- 
tin’ hen off the nest,” and he threw the big 
lever forward and gripped the throttle. “ ‘Bus- 
ter,’ it’s a bad day for such a big tonnage up 
this hill. Rails are slick, awful slippery. Ever 


12 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

have any runaways down that Runnyby in- 
cline?’’ the engineer questioned cautiously. 

^‘Yes, lots of ’em,” the stoker answered, and 
the question set him thinking. That was the 
pusher’s part of the play — to guard against 
runaway trains. 

The conductor wrapped the “all-aboard” 
signal about his head and the red ball freight 
No. 33, a solid 'Treezer” train, was under way. 
At Runnyby orders were handed out by the 
operator as the train sped past the flag station. 
It was a hurry-up story. No. 5 was making 
up time and would pass the freight at Hamp- 
ton. The gray-haired ‘Tog-head” looked wor- 
ried. He kept muttering to himself. “Bus- 
ter” only caught little smatterings of his ear- 
nest monologue : “Number 5 close in, and on 
a slippery hill like this. Fool dispatchers. 
Ought to be made to sand the greasy old track 
till they learn something besides making train 
schedules. We’re on the blunt end of her, 
too,” and automatically, the veteran occasion- 
ally gazed back at the ever-disappearing track, 
as though he expected to see No. 5 whizzing 
up the incline any minute. 

Several miles up the grade were covered 
and the men in the pusher cab were silent. 
They took periodic glimpses at the steam 
gauge, but were not encouraged by the rate 
the indicator was creeping forward. The 
big decapod at the head end of the 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 13 

train was just disappearing over the top of 
the grade. Suddenly tlie engine ahead 
“took up the slack” with a desperate lunge, 
and the next moment the rear end came to 
such a sudden halt that the pusher fireman, 
“Buster” O’Leary, in the act of throwing a 
scoop full of coal on the fire, almost took a 
header through the open firebox door. The 
engineer recovered his equilibrium, at the same 
time closing the throttle, and craned his neck 
out to see what was wrong. A “brakey” 
dropped off the way car and ran like a mad 
man towards the front end. The conductor 
at the time was in the cab of the head engine 
consulting with the engineer. 

At the time of the pusher engine’s sudden 
stop the decapod ahead lunged forward as if 
relieved of a burden. Grossman then saw the 
trouble. He turned his head and shouted to 
“Buster” : “She’s busted in two way up near 
the front end,” and he jumped clear off his 
seat and opened the throttle wide. “For God’s 
sake, ‘Buster,’ make ’er steam. We’re in for 
it now. I doubt if we can hold ’er.” 

“Put ’er in the big hole, ‘Dad,’ and we’ll 
try like pirates, anyhow,” cried “Buster,” 
every nerve alert with excitement as he shook 
the grates powerfully. 

The gray-haired veteran at the throttle 
knew well what to expect. The worst had 
come. Slippery rails, a steep grade, a little 


14 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

rattletrap of an engine behind half a thousand 
tons of rolling freight and no air brakes, for 
the pusher engine’s air pump was not connected 
with the air channel of the freight train. The 
big decapod ahead furnished the air for the 
train’s Westinghouse system. As the train 
broke in two, the brakes set, the hind part 
halted momentarily. But as soon as the air 
leaked out of the valves the long line of cars 
was a dead weight at the mercy of gravity. 
As the clamps on the car wheels released, the 
engineer in the 077 had the throttle “in the 
big hole” wide open. The little engine 
lunged forward desperately. Some of the cars 
ahead clanked together; unable to shove the 
entire train ahead — the story told. The en- 
gine drivers whirled round and round on the 
slippery track without any forward movement 
and the escaping steam panted in quick succes- 
sion, rasping the air. The engine retracted 
for a second lunge. Again the drivers whirled 
about without advancing a foot. It was a 
struggle between gravity and the locomotive 
and the former was gaining ground. 

The big decapod ahead continued its course. 
A pulled-out draw-head on one of the front 
cars of the train shifted the whole burden 
on to the little pusher engine, and despite its 
brave fight it was losing ground. The train 
began to roll down the grade, its movement 
almost imperceptible at first. Again and again 


Passing of Fireman Oleary. 15 

the 077 struggled against it, but in vain. The 
rolling weight as it were brushed back the en- 
gine’s interference, and crushing its power, 
forced the locomotive down the slope. 

“We’re goners, ‘Buster’; we’re goners. God 
pity Number 5. That’s all I can do. She’s 
runnin’ away,” cried the engineer, his voice 
harsh and broken. He pointed at the wide 
open throttle and repeated, “That’s all I can 
do; that’s all I can do.” He turned about 
on his cushion despondent, he looked at the 
floor, his face in his hands, and unseen to “Bus- 
ter,” a tear dropped from the old man’s eyes. 
“God pity Number 5,” again he reflected. The 
old man remembered the last train order — 
that the passenger train No. 5 was “close in,” 
and would pass the freight at Hampton sid- 
ing. 

“Buster” stood as though riveted to the cab 
floor. At the first sniff of danger he was an 
uncertain quantity; unable fully to realize the 
situation. The fireman looked down pitifully 
on the bowed head of his gray-haired chief, 
and in his big-hearted way longed to relieve 
him. There was but one way. 

The engineer raised his head; his face was 
pale and his appealing eye met the fireman’s. 
Some one had to speak. The tallow-pot’s in- 
tuition of the struggle in the old man’s breast 
told him the engineer was on the brink, and 


i6 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

cautiously feeling his way, he asked, '‘Ain’t 
you going to jump, ‘Dad’ ?” 

The question seemed to lift the burden; the 
old man rose to his full height. 

“Yes, ‘Buster,’ I’m goin’ to jump. ’T’s the 
first time I ever deserted my post, lad, but 
what’s the use? Done all I can. No air; no 
air,” he shook his head despairingly. “God 
pity Number 5 and poor old Dick Hanson.” 
(Hanson was the engineer on No. 5.) He 
stepped to the gangway, descended to the last 
step and clinging to the iron side railings, drew 
up for the leap. 

“Heavens, already she’s goin’ lil<e a streak. 
‘Buster,’ you better jump, too,” he earnestly 
advised, and leaving his engine to its fate, the 
old engineer disappeared in the mist along the 
right of way. 

“No air, no air. God pity Number 5,” 
“Buster” repeated to himself. Every minute 
since the train broke in two its speed was ac- 
celerated. It was fully thirty miles back to 
Woolverton, the foot of the grade, and the 
train a wild, stampeding runaway. “Buster,” 
too, would jump. He went to the gangway 
with that intention, but with a sudden flush 
that heroic “Buster” O’Leary gained the up- 
per hand. 

“Why not connect that air,” flashed through 
the fireman’s mind. 

Indeed, that was a heroic measure, and he 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 17 

did not hesitate. Every drop of blood, every 
nerve, every muscle in him fairly tingled with 
the determination to see that measure through. 
In a moment, he was out along the running 
board, across the engine front to the pilot, and 
in spite of the bolting, jolting motion, he con- 
nected up the air tu1)es and opened the air 
cock between the pusher engine and the way 
car, the last car on the train. “Buster” then 
dashed through the way car up the ladder of 
the next car. Once on top he started away 
on the run for the other end of the train, forty- 
five cars away. 

The train was now bouncing and rolling 
down the incline at a terrific rate. Once in 
a while “Buster” looked back, — that No. 5 
order not a minute off his mind. Forty-five 
cars — the bigger part of a half-a-thousand- 
ton-train, uncontrolled, rushing down the 
grade faster and faster. “Buster’s” plan was 
to reach the other end and close the air cock 
on the last car. Having opened the air cock 
between the engine and the way car, the clos- 
ing of the other end would make the brakes 
ready for business, subject to the power of 
the air pump that chugged away frantically 
on the 077. 

As “Buster” climbed down over the end of 
the car to close the cock, a somewhat acrobatic 
feat, the train flew past Runnyby station. The 
ever-watchful Runnyby operator, his eye on 


i8 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

the alert, saw the train retreating down the 
mountain slope and knew something must be 
wrong. He was waiting to hand the orders 
to No. 5, west-bound, and here from the west 
came thundering a mysterious, unheralded and 
unordered train at a rate that made it look 
like an unbroken streak as it sped past the lit- 
tle station. The operator all in a glance ob- 
served the engine drivers struggling one way, 
the power of gravity forcing the train the 
other. He saw the engine was deserted, no 
conductor or brakemen in sight. The position 
of the engine — the pusher — told him that the 
train was No. 33, and without waiting to see 
it pass he rushed to his key. The dots and 
dashes were rattled off like distant riflery. 

An operator in the Woolverton depot six- 
teen miles below caught the startling message : 

“Stop No. 5; stop No. 5. Runaway train; 
runaway train.” 

No further information was necessary to 
complete the story, for No. 5 already had left 
the Woolverton yards and was driving up the 
grade at a tremendous rate, characteristic only 
of itself. From the opposite direction, in 
care of the lone, brave fireman who stayed 
by his post yet conscious of his perilous charge, 
willing to do or die, thundered a runaway train 
hurled in the grip of gravity ; sped as if glory- 
ing in its strength, as if teeming with delight 
at its power of destruction should these two 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 19 

giant forces meet ; down the grade it 
swept. Both trains on the same track; the 
pluck of a nervy fireman, the only straw 
by which hung the fate of half a thou- 
sand lives on No. 5. If he succeeded, all’s 
well. If he failed — his brave fight would 
never be learned by another, and what about 
No. 5’s human freight? Would that tiny 
straw break ? That message indicated the 
worst had happened. 

When the message to stop No. 5 reached 
Wool ver ton, an operator in the Western Union 
room, the second story of the big Woolver- 
ton passenger depot, turned suddenly pale. 
With an unrestrained cry that brought the at- 
tention of all the other operators in the room 
to center on him, he jumped from his chair. 

‘‘Number 5 is wrecked,” he yelled, and 
bolted out of the door and down the hall to the 
superintendent’s office with the terrible news. 

Traveling Engineer Bloomington and the 
superintendent were there in earnest consulta- 
tion when the operator, his eyes staring like 
semaphores, burst through the door and fairly 
yelled : 

“Number 5 collided with a runaway train 
between here and Runnyby.” 

The message burst like a clap of thunder 
in the head man’s office. 

“What?” snapped the superintendent, and 
he sprang to his feet with such force that his 


20 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

straight backed chair turned a somersault on 
the floor. ‘‘What in d — nation you givin’ 
us?” he remonstrated. 

The operator breathlessly explained. The 
passenger train had been gone but a few min- 
utes and making up time. A terrible catas- 
trophe was inevitable. 

The superintendent ordered out the “wreck- 
er” and his special car in double quick meter. 
The head surgeon of the hospital, several 
younger heads and numerous stretchers were in 
readiness when the “steam wrecker” with its 
crew and many rescuers was “made up” for 
the start. The superintendent was a man of 
quick thought and correct purpose. But now 
he was slightly ill-tempered and nervous. No. 
5 was one of the fastest, finest equipped trains 
in the service and over the Woolverton divi- 
sion always carried hundreds of passengers. 
The official braced himself to meet the worst. 
He had seen disastrous wrecks before. He, the 
traveling engineer and the benevolent-looking 
old doctor occupied one corner of the special 
car and scarcely a word passed between them 
after they left Woolverton — each expectant, 
as though he were uncovering the future and 
feared to look. It was but a few minutes 
when the special came to a slow down and 
stopped. The superintendent’s heart leaped 
spasmodically, as he thrust his head out of the 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 21 

window and looked ahead. He drew back 
quickly. 

‘‘Why, here is Runnyby and no wreck yet. 
There must be some mistake.” The three of- 
ficials hastened from the car. Sure enough, 
they had reached Runnyby and had not en- 
countered the No. 5 wreck. An unpretentious- 
looking freight train stood on the siding and 
out of the engine cab window leaned a sooty- 
faced, blue-overalled fireman. He seemed to 
recognize the officials, and a ticklish smile 
played about his lips; but the officials did not 
even notice him. They went straight to the 
operator in the little red depot. Then the 
storm broke from a clear sky. 

“Well, this is a thundering smart trick you 
have played on us! What did you mean by 
wiring that a runaway train had smashed into 
Number 5 somewhere between this shanty and 
Woolverton ?” 

“I — I thought it was inevitable,” apolo- 
gized the worried operator. “I just now 
wired Woolverton how it all happened.” 

“Oh, you ‘thought’ there would be a wreck, 
did you ?” mocked the superintendent. “Young 
man, do you know how many men lose their 
jobs on this road every month just because 
they thought wrong. You have erred grossly. 
Have you anything to say about the matter? 
The report was considered as true, and because 
of it, this ‘wrecker’ was sent out. This 


22 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

is abominable/' The ‘Trass collar” was on 
his metal and by the time he finished he was 
all in a bluster. 

The operator then took up the charges in 
genuine Philadelphia lawyer style. 

“Sir, it is all a lie,” he retorted. “I did 
not wire Number 5 had smashed into a run- 
away. My message was to stop Number 5, 
because a runaway train was flying down the 
grade. As Number 5 had left Woolverton 
before the message was received, the conclu- 
sion was formed by yourselves. I did think 
the trains had collided and am yet scarcely 
able to tell how Providence averted it.” 

The interest of the officials set out in their 
faces. 

“Just be seated, gentlemen, and I will call 
in that fireman ; he can best tell his own 
story.” 

The operator stepped to the door and told 
the fireman, with the blue overalls and the sooty 
face, who graced the cab window of the un- 
pretentious freight on the siding, that he was 
wanted inside. “Buster” O’Leary stalked in, 
“feeling his oats” just enough to have that 
feeling frightened when he came face to face 
with the officials. His upper-cut smile was 
unusually conspicuous. His regalia, and the 
generous amount of coal dust smeared over his 
countenance, gave “Buster” a typical “tallow- 
pot” aspect. 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 23 

The superintendent had completely calmed. 
He saw the point. Yet his was that precise 
nature to ferret the matter to a standstill. 

^‘Buster” then told his story — ^how he con- 
nected up the air between the pusher engine 
and the way car; ran to the other end of the 
train and just as the train sped past Runnyby, 
in spite of the rolling, jolting cars, he climbed 
over the end of the last car and turned the air 
cock. ‘This closed up the air channel,” ju- 
bilantly crowed “Buster.” “Then I chased 
back over them freezers — well, I guess there 
was about forty of ’em — back into that engine 
cab, closed the throttle and give ’em air. You 
know all the time that bloomin’ engine was 
driving one way and them dead weight cars 
was rushing it t’other way, ’cause there was 
no air. I put on the air and give ’em sand 
and jimminy, you ought to seen ’em come in! 
Th’ air brakes once set, all them cars didn’t 
have any more runaway notion left than a 
snail in a snow drift. I tell you it was a claw 
bar cinch. Them wheels never turned a lick. 
Just grated down and down; slower and 
slower, till the rascal came to a standstill about 
five miles below Runnyby. I tell you that 
Number 5 order had me shiverin’ most of 
the time, but I stayed with her till she stopped, 
dead still; then I grabbed a red flag and lit 
out down the track, oh, ’bout a few hundred 
yards to meet Number 5, and sure enough. 


24 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

I halted that runaway just in time, ’cause 
Number 5 came ’long right away and I 
flagged her. 

“When I told Dick Hanson (he was on 
Number 5) what had happened, he was so 
glad he almost bawled, and he made me take 
that as a reminder of my ride,” and “Bus- 
ter” gleefully exhibited a much-worn, sooty 
five-dollar greenback which he pulled from his 
overall pocket. “ ‘Ole Dick’ said I had saved 
his bacon and maybe the lives of all them pas- 
sengers he was leading up the mountain, just 
because I stayed with that train and didn’t 
jump — but I never thought I was doing any- 
thing so awful great. 

“The passenger engine coupled up with my 
pusher and helped back the runaway train, and 
yonder she is out there on the siding wait- 
ing for orders.” 

For several minutes after O’Leary finished 
his story, the barren little room of the Run- 
nyby station was still as a graveyard except 
for the occasional rasping click, click of the 
telegraph key. The three officials had been 
interested, yes, astonished, and with ears and 
eyes open, they drank in every word of the 
fireman’s story. Now a thoughtful silence 
reigned. The superintendent stroked his 
stubby mustache and looked steadily through 
the open door. The dignified old doctor with 
head erect, his fat chin drawn in, gazed wide- 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 25 

eyed at “Buster.’' With jaws slightly ajar, 
the traveling engineer blankly studied the patch 
of soot on the fireman’s cheek. 

The superintendent broke the silence. 

“What went with your engineer; suppose 
he jumped like a coward,” he ventured de- 
murely. 

“Oh, with ‘Dad’? Why, yes, he jumped, 
but — but — ’e — I made him.” 

“You made him? How’s that?” 

“Well — eh — you see, we saw she was run- 
ning away, and ‘Dad’ mentioned that Num- 
ber 5 was coming and ” 

“He was afraid to face the music, eh?” en- 
joined the superintendent. 

“Don’t — you — think — it. I told him to 
jump or I’d throw him out. There wasn’t no 
use of both of us bein’ made into sausage meat, 
so he jumped before she got a very heavy 
head-on.” “Buster” knew the statement was 
false in part, but his motive was meritorious 
at least. That “story” saved “Dad’s” job. 

“And why didn’t you jump, too?” the of- 
ficial inquired further with manifest interest. 

“Well, to be honest, boss, I did come mighty 
near it. I got as far as the gangway when 
I ’lowed maybe I could connect that air. Then 
I just couldn’t jump, ’cause all the time I was 
thinking of Number 5, and the hundreds of 
lives it was swishing up that track; and, you 
bet I thought of that one lone ‘tallow-pot’ 


26 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

on that runaway train, dashing down that 
mountain-side.’’ “Buster” grew oratorical. “I 
knew my life wasn’t worth nothin’ in compar- 
ison with that train load of humans. It looked 
like about a thousand-to-one game that I would 
lose, but I played it out on that one chance, 
and it so happened as to postpone my funeral 
for a while, anyhow ; and I couldn’t help from 
thinkin’, after I was on that sidin’ there, and 
that passenger train chased by me, and I saw 
those seats filled with fine men and women 
who never even scented danger, that it was a 
mighty good risk I run. Tell you it was old 
man X. Westinghouse that deserves their 
thanks. It was them air brakes that saved the 
day. Jimminy, they worked like magic!” 

“No, I think that lone fireman deserves all 
the honor,” meditated the traveling engineer, 
and the other officials promptly sanctioned his 
decision. 

Another silence. The superintendent shifted 
his position and addressed the fireman in a 
kind, contented tone of voice. 

“Young man, you do not seem fully to real- 
ize it, but your genuine grit and presence 
of mind, beyond a doubt, have averted a most 
disastrous wreck, not to mention the loss of 
life that would have followed had not that 
runaway train been stopped. I tell you run- 
away trains are hell,” and he emphasized his 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 27 

last word with a resounding thump of his fist, 
on the table at his elbow. 

“As head of this division, I take the re- 
sponsibility of saying that your valuable serv- 
ice will not go unrewarded. I will report it 
to the president.” A brief pause. “Yes, sir, 
that was one of the pluckiest, bravest, most 
handsome deeds I ever ran across in my thirty 
years of railroading.” 

“Buster's” characteristic grin framed in a 
much wider expanse of ivory than was custom- 
ary. His heart was buoyant. It was the 
calm after the storm of excitement — that se- 
rene feeling of “well done, good and faith- 
ful servant.” The superintendent again took 
up the case. The more he thought about it, 
the more it worked up his admiration for the 
fireman. 

“How long have you been firing, O’Leary ?” 

“Little over two months, is all.” 

“Think you can run an engine?” 

“Well, I can run one, but I don’t know much 
about its tinkerings and contrivances. I can 
handle that 077 till I catch my ‘eagle-eye.’ 
’Spect he hoofed it to Hampton. But I’ll want 
another engine ahead, you bet. Don’t want 
any more runaway trains in mine.” 

Finally “Buster” “caught on” : 

“Oh-h — Well, boss, I ain’t got enough 
whiskers to be a real engineer.” (“Whis- 


28 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

kers,” is the common name for seniority, with 
railroad men.) 

“Whiskers and be darned. Can’t I give 
you a whole Blue Beard if I want to? How 
would you like to be promoted to the engi- 
neers’ board, and take a little special training 
to make you competent?” 

“Buster’s” lower jaw dropped, and for a 
while he had to get out a search warrant for 
his voice. 

“Why, why — eh, boss. I’m afraid that’s too 
much,” reflected the fireman, as he scratched 
his head for thoughts. “ ’Fraid I’ve too much 
to learn before I’d make an engineer.” 

“Well, suit yourself. Name anything on 
the whole system, and it’s yours, just so you 
don’t 'bump’ the superintendent,” laughed the 
seldom laughing official. 

“Buster” went into a dark brown study for 
a few moments, during which he seemed to 
have stirred up a happy thought. 

“Tell you what : I’d like to compromise with 
you. Put me in the firemen’s pool, and knock 
off those 'Brownies’ you gave me some time 
ago, and I’ll call it square, and then some.” 

“Done,” agreed the superintendent. “You 
will have a pool and a clear record as soon as 
I get back to Woolverton.” He rose, and put- 
ting his hand firmly on the fireman’s shoul- 
der, said: “God bless you, lad. I hope you 
feel rewarded.” 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 29 

The operator handed the superintendent 
some orders and the officials started for their 
car; left “Buster” grinning no longer that old 
hard-luck smile — and pinching himself to see 
if his wind-fall was a dream or really was true. 
But he didn’t have to pinch very many times. 

A fortnight after the runaway train raced 
down the Runnyby hill a gold medal from the 
president of the road, accompanied by a per- 
sonal letter from him, was forwarded to the 
Woolverton superintendent, to be presented to 
Fireman O’Leary. It was one somewhat like 
the coveted gold medal owned by the express 
messenger, Chauncey Bleeker. The O’Leary 
medal bore in hand-engraved words, “To Den- 
nis O’Leary, fireman, in high appreciation of 
meritorious service. From the Rocky Moun- 
tain Railroad Company, 1890.” 

The strange thing about the medal is that 
it never reached O’Leary. The pretty gold 
medal, still hanging above the desk of the 
Woolverton superintendent, is the nucleus of 
a story that has been told over and over again 
by the men on that division. Why that gold 
medal should decorate the wall of the super- 
intendent’s office instead of the person of 
Dennis O’Leary, was an intricate enough a 
question to turn the average man into an in- 
terrogation mark. 

The superintendent pointed to the gold 
medal as “my temperance story.” For a week 


30 Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 

after '‘Buster’' O’Leary won his stripes, he 
“lay off duty.” Every one talked about the 
runaway train hero; the newspapers spread 
it ; the railroad officials gossiped over 
it; the operators in their spare minutes 
flashed it over the wires. All this turned 
O’Leary’s head, and like many others, his bet- 
ter self was smothered to death by his own 
glory. “Buster” topped off that week of ela- 
tion with his first drunk. He wasn’t satisfied 
with kicking his foot through a plate-glass 
window of an uptown saloon, but went to 
the yards and ran amuck in a passenger train; 
locked the conductor out of doors and made 
a fool of himself generally. 

The next morning, after sobering up, 
O’Leary didn’t take the formality of tendering 
his resignation. His sense of shame and dis- 
grace directed him. He packed up his effects 
and left — for where no one ever knew, as far 
as the superintendent was able to find but. The 
gold medal arrived a few days after his de- 
parture, and there it still hangs, keeping alive 
the story of O’Leary’s heroism, likewise his 
fall ; how O’Leary mastered the runaway train, 
and anon how bad whiskey mastered O’Leary. 
And that’s why “Buster” lost his pool. 


Passing of Fireman O’Leary. 31 


WHEN THE TEXAN .WAS YARDMAS- 
TER. 

A “windy” walker story 

After “Windy” Walker, fireman, had flour- 
ished the scoop shovel on the Pollywog branch 
passenger run several years, the division fore- 
man gave him a job running a switch engine 
preparatory to an examination for engineer. 

It took “Windy” to tell stories. In fact, to 
that talent he owed the significant sobriquet, 
“Windy.” And after “Windy” took the 
switch engine job, his association with the 
switchmen was, of itself, a good reason for 
enhancing his accomplishment of exaggerat- 
ing facts until they wouldn’t recognize their 
own proportions. 

One of the deals that made “Windy” 
Walker a friend of the switchmen was once 
when he relieved them of the uncomfortable 
and necessarily dangerous positions of imitat- 
ing a gang of Spanish bull-fighters. The de- 
tails of the excitement in the yards the morn- 
ing a raw-boned, red-eyed, long-horned Texas 


32 When the Texan was Yardmaster. 

steer impudently assumed the responsibilities 
of yardmaster, certainly make a thrilling story, 
and as Walker was the hero of the day, it is 
only just dues that, whenever any one wants 
to hear about what the Texan stirred up, the 
switchmen would call in ‘‘Windy,’^ and tell 
him to loosen up his vocabulary. 

“Well,'' hesitated “Windy," in relating the 
tale about when the Texas steer ran riot in 
the yards, “about the first thing that im- 
pressed me that morning was, that when a 
man gets his wits balled up good and big,, his 
hair really does stand on end. 

“We had a brawny, rough-necked Irishman, 
named O'Harrety, slamming switch stands in 
the east end, and the first thing I saw of that 
long-horned Texas skeleton, was when O'Har- 
rety came down the line along a string of box 
cars on ^six' track, at a scared-to-death pace. 
That Irishman had an elaborate flow of Irish- 
English when he wasn't flustered, but laboring 
under excitement, O'Harrety's tongue had 
nervous prostration. One would have reck- 
oned the devil and all his hired men were on 
that Irishman's trail. His hair looked like the 
bristles on a curry-comb, 'nd he was wavin' 
his hat and yellin' loud enough to wake up 
a cemetery. The gang about the shanty door 
naturally got curious, and began rubberin' in 
O'Harrety's direction, 'nd all of a sudden, 
when that pale Irishman was about close 


When the Texan was Yardmaster. 33 

enough for us to whistle down brakes, so he 
could make an explanation as to why he was 
overdoin’ the yard speed rate of six miles an 
hour, we got the first glimpse of a Texas steer, 
all horns and two bleary eyes, as he swung 
around the corner of the nearest string of cars, 
and headed down the lead for the shanty. The 
way we fellers helter-skeltered into that switch- 
shanty wasn’t at all slow. 

“O’Harrety was a few lengths in th’ lead 
of the steer, and when I seen he was makin’ 
a bee-line for the door, I stood inside and 
held it part way open for him. That Irish- 
man didn’t stop at the door, either. He sort 
a-tripped on the sill, and his speed was geared 
so high that he landed like a chunk of mud 
up against the opposite wall, then fell on to the 
bench along the wall with a groanin’ breath 
that sounded like his safety valve had popped 
open and he was just puffin’ out excess power. 
’Course, I slammed the door shut, so that 
mean-looking Texan wouldn’t take a notion to 
follow. 

“But, talk about your head-end collisions! 
I have been in one or two myself, but they was 
just little love-taps. That cussed steer made 
a header for that shanty door — nothin’ could 
stop him. I, like the rest of the fellows, was 
laughin’ at the scared Irishman, when, whop! 
Somethin’ landed up against that door. I 
thought mebby it was a runaway engine. Y’ 


34 When the Texan was Yardmaster. 

wSee, I was tryin’ to hold the door shut, and that 
swat jarred me up hard enough to give my 
great-great-grandfather the shaking palsy. 
That old door went to pieces so fast I couldn’t 
keep track of the pieces. Tell you, about that 
time I wasn’t able to keep track of myself. 
I think I must have hit the ceilin’. Anyhow, 
I came down across the top of the stove with 
part of the stove-pipe gracefully wrapped 
about my neck. I didn’t stop to see how 
many cracked ribs I had or whether the stove 
was worst hurt than I was, but after the stars 
and stripes had cleared off the right of way of 
my eyesight, I saw at a glance, a pair of feet 
disappearing out each window, and that I was 
alone in the cabin. 

‘‘But imagine my state of mind when I 
looked around and saw there in the doorway, 
the countenance of that wild-eyed rack-o’- 
bones, hind hoofs up in the air and front ones 
pawin’ dirt all over the railroad track, a-figurin’ 
how to get a pair of six-foot horns through 
a three-foot wide doorway. Thank goodness, 
that old boy’s geometry was a slow process 
sort, and by the time he had figured out what 
angle to slant his horns to get inside, I had 
followed O’Harrety through the open win- 
dow. I made my get-away in such a hurry, 
that I probably would have plowed a furrow 
through the cinders with my chin, if I hadn’t 
a-lit head first on O’Harrety’s bread-basket. 


When the Texan was Yardmaster. 35 

It like to winded him, but without dallyin’ to 
see whether he had lost his breath, false teeth, 
watch, head, or any other staple and fancy 
valuables, we hiked off to my engine which 
was standin’ in front of the shanty; and after 
I was up in the cab, I wasn’t dead certain that 
steer wasn’t followin’ me till I heard him bawl- 
in’ and scatterin’ destruction inside the shanty. 
He got inside, all right. ’Spect he thought 
it was terribly impolite of us not to’ve been 
there to receive our guest, so he took his 
vengeance out on the furniture, which was a 
mighty hard matter to get satisfaction out of. 
I’ll bet. 

“The Texan finished dilapidatin’ the stove, 
incidentally slashed the points of his hookers 
through all the window lights of the estab- 
lishment and when he stalked out of the door, 
he carried the back of a busted chair on one 
horn, and from the tip of the other, jauntily 
suspended by its wire hanger, was a picture 
of an actress, a theatre poster that one of the 
switchmen had framed and hung up in the 
shanty. 

“About that time we began spreadin’ the 
alarm and wonderin’ how many partners he 
had runnin’ at large, but he seemed to be the 
only Texan out. It was along in the spring 
of the year, when the shipments of Texas cat- 
tle to Kansas ranges are pretty numerous, and 
we sort o’ decided that that rnurderous-look- 


36 When the Texan was Yardmaster. 

in’ pair of horns must have escaped from some 
cattle car, by crawlin’ through the slats, and 
that steer was certainly bony enough to. I’d 
always heard that when a genuine Texas 
steer, and especially a hungry one, gets on the 
war path, he goes plum crazy, and the insane 
asylum was certainly the only place for that 
wild-eyed beast. Tell y’ what, that critter was 
on a man hunt. He paraded about the yards, 
and every time he caught sight of a switch- 
man, or any one else, for that matter, the dirt 
began to fly. The switchmen did the Span- 
ish bull-fighter act to a finish. Their chief 
get-away when the green-eyed monster made 
an unexpected sally on them was to dodge in 
between the ends of two box cars. When the 
cars are in a train you know there is a space 
between them of about eighteen inches, and 
the steer couldn’t get to ’em. But he would 
smash up against the cars, though, if he could 
not hit the switchmen. He wouldn’ stop at 
nothing. If a feller would dodge behind a 
stone wall, I guess he’d just as soon plunk 
into the stone wall as the pine door of that 
old switch-shanty. 

‘‘Well, the rascal slam-banged around there 
until he had a corner on the switchman mar- 
ket. Anyhow, he had all the switchmen cor- 
nered. Things began gettin’ in pretty bad 
shape. The yards were gettin’ blocked. The 
freight trains kept pullin’ in until there were 


When the Texan was Yardmaster. 37 

no tracks to hold them and no trains were be- 
in' made up to amount to anything. 

“Switchman O’Harrety's individual excite- 
ment had reached such high pressure that he 
was architect for some mighty reckless, dare- 
devil plans. He got a rope from somewhere; 
said he used to be somewhat of a cowboy him- 
self, and would see if throwin’ a lasso was a 
lost art to him. Well, he had the good luck 
to ‘get next’ real soon. He spied the steer 
coming down alongside a string of box cars, 
so he gets on top of a car and waits cautious- 
like till the steer comes along. As soon as he 
had passed a little ways, O’Harrety drops the 
loop over one horn and then braces himself 
for trouble. The funny thing about it was 
that just about that time, that wanderin’ skel- 
eton caught sight of a blue-shirted switch- 
man, a few car lengths away, who had got 
interested in O’Harrety’s scheme and stepped 
out in the open to watch results, and they cer- 
tainly were worth watchin’. 

“ ’Course, the steer was up on his toes after 
that blue shirt, straight away, and was mak- 
in’ about three hundred revolutions a minute 
when he got to the end of the rope. All of 
a sudden it became taut. Before it happened, 
OHarrety saw there would be somethin’ do- 
in’, and he took an extra brace for the recoil, 
lay back on the lasso for dear life. And for 
about a rninute, I guess, he wondered whether 


38 When the Texan was Yardmaster. 

he had any dear life or not. He was jerked 
off that car for about two full, regulation-sized 
somersets towards the steer, and at the same 
time, the steer threw the reverser and made 
a backward flip-flop in the air. Fortunately 
O'Harrety didn’t light very hard in his acro- 
batic stunt off the box car. When he and the 
steer regained their equilibrium, they came up 
face to face only a few feet apart. I don’t 
know which was frightened the worst, but 
I think the steer was. They looked blankly 
at each other for a second, as if wonderin’ 
how it all happened, and the beast bawled out 
a bum note, whirled about and started after 
the blue shirt he had his lookers on before that 
sudden interruption. 

‘‘The Irishman was glued on to that rope, 
though, and the steer soon discovered that its 
energy was in the wrong direction, so again 
he wheeled about, and charged on O’Harrety. 
Old Ireland seemed to think it was a foregone 
conclusion that the two ends of the rope had 
to pull in opposite directions, and when he saw 
the steer with pilot pointin’ his way, head 
down, and tail over the dash-board, he just 
stood there as though waitin’ for some one 
to wave a red light before he could smell dan- 
ger. That Irishman had stage fright. He 
bunched his wits, though, soon enough to head 
in under a box car, just in time to fight shy 
of that pair of vicious snags. O’Harrety de- 


When the Texan was Yardmaster. 39 

cided lassoin’ wasn’t just exactly his profes- 
sion, and gave it up. 

“Only one fellow was caved in by that wild- 
eyed Texan that mornin’, and it made a se- 
lection that pleased the switchmen mighty 
much. You remember old Webb Moore, that 
brass-voiced, brow-beatin’ extract of human- 
ity? Well, he was yardmaster then. He hap- 
pened to look out over the yards from his office 
window and saw the yards were blocked up 
pretty badly. He threw a fit and came chas- 
in’ down the line, bawlin’ half as loud as the 
old steer was. When he saw what was up, 
he meandered over to where the gang was 
and wanted to know what in the deuce the yards 
were all blocked up for. He found out mighty 
soon, too. ‘Lord’ Moore thought it a shame 
that a lot of men should be buffaloed, scared 
from duty by as frail a lookin’ specimen as that 
old Texas ranger, so he started in to ‘shoo’ the 
long-horn off the premises, just like an old 
woman would charge down on a flock of chick- 
ens if they were scratchin’ in her flower-bed. 

“But the steer didn’t ‘shoo.’ Moore made 
a bold dash at first, but when he saw the crit- 
ter didn’t take to the timber, he slackened his 
pace. The steer just kind o’ watched him out 
of the corners of his wild-lookin’ optics until 
Moore got pretty close. Then all in a jiffy 
that four-footed stranger let out a vicious bawl 
and went through the air with the throttle 


40 When the Texan was Yardmaster. 

wide open. Moore didn’t more ’an get turned 
around, than the steer landed on his ‘dead 
wood,’ and I’ll be jostled if his majesty, the 
yardmaster, didn’t roll about twenty feet, and 
after he had reached a slow-down, he had sense 
enough to roll himself over a time or two more, 
which put him out of reach of the steer, in 
under a box car. And if he hadn’t a-gotten 
under the box car, it certainly w^ould have been 
time for the accident insurance man to come 
’round, for that animule just kept right after 
him. When he saw he couldn’t touch him, 
Mr. Steer moseyed on down the track with 
blood in his eye, still lookin’ for big game. 

“Well, the bunt that cactus-fed steer shoved 
onto ‘Lord’ Moore, certainly took a few kinks 
out of his self-respect. The switchmen felt 
like passin’ the hat to buy the old steer a 
bucket of bran, but, of course, they couldn’t 
afford to give way on their sentiments like 
that. As soon as Moore had coupled himself 
together, he crawled out from under that car 
and swore vengeance. The switchmen could 
not help givin’ him the horse laugh about shoo- 
in’ away the steer, and he couldn’t hold back 
from grinnin’ right foolish-like all the time 
he was belchin’ out cuss words big enough to 
wreck a train. 

“Moore went straight to a restaurant not 
far off and borrowed a Winchester rifle; said 
he would sure clean up for that brute. He 


When the Texan was Yardmaster. 41 

dodged about among the box cars until he got 
a good bead on the steer. And just about that 
time the steer got a bead on the yardmaster. 
Moore up and blazed away. He never touched 
the steer, but the bullet whispered somethin’ 
in a switchman’s ear a few car lengths away, 
and brought out a powerfully bold stream of 
cuss words about what a fool the yardmaster 
was. The yardmaster, though, about that 
time was engaged in other pursuits than lis- 
tenin’ to a loud-mouthed switchman ; good 
thing for the switchman’s standin’ with the 
company that he didn’t hear, too. Moore 
blazed away a second time at the string of 
bones bearin’ down on him. I don’t believe 
the yardmaster could hit a flock of barns, let 
alone that steer, ’cause it was built on the nar- 
raw gauge plan and when cornin’ straight at 
a fellow it was just like shootin’ at a string. 
Of course, the second shot went wild. It was 
about time for a bayonet charge or to swing 
clubl>ed muskets, but Moore, in a very hasty 
manner, laid aside his arms and was in full 
retreat. It certainly was another Bull-run, or 
steer-run, as you like it. Moore managed to 
find a timely life-savin’ station between the 
ends of two box cars. 

“I had gotten a-thunderin’ lot of amusement 
out of this wild animal show and kind o’ hated 
to spoil the fun, but it looked like somethin’ 
had to be done. Excitement was rife about 


42 When the Texan was Yardmaster. 

the place and there was mighty little work be- 
in’ done. A lot of shopmen were up on top 
of the round-house, takin’ a bird’s-eye view 
of the maneuvers, and the men from the freight 
house, wonderin’ why the switchmen hadn’t 
brought some freight cars down to the plat- 
form to empty, had come down to the yards 
to find out what the agitation was and were 
lined up on some box cars watchin’ the fun. 
Some one ’phoned uptown for a policeman, — 
but, of course, a copper wasn’t expected to 
show up on the scene of action till several 
hours after the trouble was all over — thinkin’ 
the cop might have a right to shoot the steer 
for raisin’ hell without a city license, you 
know. Anyhow, somethin’ had to be done, 
and a happy thought struck me. That wall- 
eyed ox was standin’ in the middle of ‘eight’ 
track and the right of way was clear from my 
end of the yards to the steer. So I tells one 
of the switchmen to let me in on ‘eight’ track 
and I would run down on the critter and put 
him out of business. 

“I was sort o’ anxious to see what the steer 
would do when he saw a steam engine pranc- 
in’ down on him. I pulled the whistle string 
and when the Texan heard the toot, toot, and 
spied the engine cornin’, he just reared up on 
his hind feet and tore up the dirt like a steam 
shovel. The critter was certainly lookin’ for 
as big game as he could see, and was im- 


jWhen the Texan was Yardmaster. 43 

mensely delighted at the thought of a chal- 
lenge from the iron boss; so here he comes 
just a-flyin’ and a-bellerin’. I loosened up the 
throttle a little bit till I was hittin’ a pretty 
good lick, because the only thing to do in my 
estimation was to bust the brute’s neck, so I 
went after him for blood. 

“There was a head-end collision like them 
you read about. Talk about the cow jump- 
in’ over the moon! You ought to have got 
a glimpse of the mid-air tour that Texas steer 
took. I heard that wiry old neck snap like 
a brittle saplin’, and his carcass streaked out 
like it had wings; went plum over some box 
cars on the next track and lit on the cinders 
limp as a rag. 

“But to give the devil his dues, I must say 
that raw-boned critter put up a good battle. 
He got in a sort of a side lick on the pilot 
of my engine that put the pony trucks clean 
off the rails, and after we had bounced over 
a few rail lengths of ties and tore up three 
or four rails, I managed to reach a standstill. 
I left the engine to the mercy of the yard gang 
and they had her back on the track in a lit- 
tle while. 

“The switchmen wanted to give me three 
cheers and a tiger for the good riddance of 
bad rubbish. The steer was dead after about 
three or four hours of delay, but the yard work 
was soon on full blast again. 


44 When the Texan was Yardmaster. 

“I never did feel that 1 got my money’s 
worth out of that deal, though. I’ll admit it 
was a circus and was worth considerable, but 
it cost me just $30 out of my next pay check. 
Why, you know the claim agent was around 
a day or two later and informed me the owner 
of that steer wanted the money for it, and said 
it was up to me to muster up my small change. 
I couldn’t see it that way, but he changed my 
train of vision along that line, however. Told 
me I voluntarily ran down the steer; had me 
where I couldn’t back out, so I signed up for 
the damages, and posted that thirty plunks 
on the losin’ side of my account book to ‘pop- 
ular amusements.’ ” 


When the Texan was Yardmaster. 4j 


THE DUMB LUCK OF “WIDE-OPEN 
JIM.” 

The reason “Wide-open Jim’’ Hawkins was 
popular with the boys was not altogether be- 
cause he was a seemingly reckless, happy-go- 
lucky chap. Jim’s good nature was limited 
with a high degree of good sense and decency 
that gave him a prestige among his fellows. 
All odds to the contrary, Jim had a good head, 
and had gained his engineer’s stripes very 
young; he was the youngest engineer on the 
division. 

“Wide-open Jim’s” career as an engineer, 
fortunately and unfortunately, was short. How 
the closing of it could have the paradoxical 
characteristics of a fortunate misfortune can 
better be imagined at the story’s end. But 
during the time Jim ran an engine, when en- 
gineer on the Pollywog branch passenger run, 
he established a few records for speed that 
made all previous fast runs on the branch read 
like funeral processions in comparison. 

For any railroad company, speed is a win- 
ner, as long as a limit to it and to the engi- 


46 Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim/’ 

neer’s record-smashing ambition drops brakes 
somewhere this side of a railroad wreck. And 
speed was ‘'Wide-open Jim’s” long suit. That’s 
why he was dubbed “Wide-open.” When he 
held down the cushion on the right side of 
a locomotive cab, the throttle was wide open 
as long as the steamer had enough breath to 
keep her drivers propelling. He was a hearty 
fellow and the bent of his happy-go-lucky na- 
ture seemed to be to play the “dumb-luck” 
proposition to the extreme. Always running 
his engine over the road at a rip-snorting pace, 
it was a mystery he didn’t have more smash- 
ups than he did, or wasn’t fired about once a 
month regularly. But still Jim’s anatomy was 
all together and his record was fairly rid of 
demerit marks, in spite of his dare-devil pro- 
pensities — as the railroad men called them. 
His good fortune was allotted to plain, every- 
day dumb luck. 

Of course, Jim liked to brag on his wild, 
flying maneuvers. It’s an old saying that “a 
fool laughs at his own folly” ; Jim wavSn’t fool 
enough to go into hysterics over his hair- 
breadth escapes, but he sometimes liked to tell 
about them and make the other fellows laugh. 

When Jim had been on the engine board 
long enough to get a pool, he took the Polly- 
wog passenger run. It was one on which the 
engine men had to sit on fly-paper if they 
hoped to hold their seats. The dinky little 


Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.” 47 

old No. 266 that handled the business end of 
the Pollywog run was an “old-timer”; one of 
the type of engines the men called “gallopers.” 
The Pollywog was a branch road through a 
marshy country; the road-bed was soft, and 
on it the 266 overdid her galloping tendency. 
But “Wide-open Jim” was raised on the range 
up to the time he took a job in the round- 
house, and riding the 266 was ample reason 
to recall the range days when his main am- 
bition was to be able to sit unruffled on a wild 
and woolly cayuse. 

The pool mate of “Wide-open Jim,” his 
fireman, was one “Windy” Walker, second to 
none as a “wind-jammer,” hot-air manufac- 
turer, etc., etc. “Windy” and Jim were two 
of a kind and if one could outstrip the other 
in exhibition of dare-devil skill or the telling 
about it afterwards, the other wouldn’t admit 
it. “Windy” and Jim were a pair of extrav- 
agant yarn spinners. They could dress up the 
plain and simple truth until it looked like a 
bird of paradise; and they not only could, but 
usually did. 

The exploits of “Wide-open Jim” were nu- 
merous. He had been in every kind of a 
“mix-up” from a box-car “jamboree” in the 
yards to a flight on a runaway engine, and 
“dumb luck,” as a life preserver, had certainly 
played its part well. But, as some of the boys 
said, the moth is bound to get his wings singed 


48 Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.’* 

if he insists on monkeying over the lime light. 
And Jim reached the end of his rope one day. 

It happened along in the early part of June. 
Jim had been on the Pollywog run over two 
years. The fact that he missed only four runs 
during the month of June, put all previous 
records on the Pollywog in the shade. 

Every June the Pollywog looked more like 
a trans-Atlantic steamship route than a rail- 
road track. The June rise was an annual con- 
tortion of the Big Turtle river, and contem- 
poraneous with the June rise were the futile 
efforts of the railroad company to keep traf- 
fic open on the Pollywog branch. A greater 
part of its length the branch followed the 
course of the Big Turtle river, and if the riv- 
er’s annual rise went to flood tide, and it 
usually did, the Pollywog was out of business. 
That is until ‘‘Wide-open Jim” took the run. 
One way he broke the record, was taking the 
train safely across the South Lake swamp, 
even though the water did rush over the track. 
In years before Jim’s day there was nothing 
doing on the Pollywog when she was buried 
in water. The engineers wouldn’t risk their 
lives on it. 

The year Jim made his last run on the Polly- 
wog branch, the Big Turtle flood was higher 
than ever before. The old South Lake bot- 
tom, like most river valley swamps, was an old 
river bed, and when the Big Turtle got up 


Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.’’ 49 

and in a hurry it cut across through the old 
river bed with sweeping force. 

That day a freight train started out in an 
attempt to cross the swamp, but couldn’t make 
it, and backed down to the station because the 
gurgling sweep of water across the right of 
way said “Danger” as plainly as a red flag 
could have signaled. A civil engineer went 
out later and said the track was still intact, 
but was under two and a half feet of water 
and there was no telling when the grade would 
give away. Jim said he didn’t want any more 
space to run his engine on than the track, 
and he was willing to take out his passenger 
train on schedule time if the dispatcher would 
only say the word. The passenger train was 
made up and ready ; but when the construction 
man reported the track was in danger of wash- 
ing out, the dispatcher annulled the train. The 
annulling order, however, hadn’t reached Engi- 
neer Jim Hawkins before something inter- 
fered. That something was a man with a 
wild, frenzied look in his eye; an elderly man, 
well dressed, refined appearing and apparently 
well-to-do. He had heard there was a pos- 
sibility the branch passenger train would be 
annulled, and that news was reason for the 
worn, determined expression that overran his 
face as he rushed out of the depot and fairly 
ran the full length of the platform towards 
the engine. “Wide-open Jim” was seated on 


50 Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.” 


the platform near his engine, calmly waiting 
the dispatcher’s decision; his running orders 
already in his hand. The conductor was stand- 
ing at his side. 

The well-dressed stranger with a message 
of distress in his face rushed up. 

'‘Gentlemen,” he said, almost out of breath, 
"there is a possibility this train will be an- 
nulled, but I must get across that river to 
Kington to-night; I must do it. Who must 
I see, quick ; who is running this train ?” 

He spoke imploringly, pitifully. At the 
close of his question his jaws clenched, his 
eyes twitched nervously as though he knew 
not which way to turn for help. Trouble was 
sculptured in his well-proportioned face. With 
a sudden nervous move he thrust a yellow 
strip of paper towards the men, crying: 

"Men, just read that. Can’t you help me? 
I’ll give you anything you ask if it is in my 
power.” 

The yellow strip of paper was a telegram. 
The message was brief but held on its type 
a story, a sad, pathetic story. It read : "Doc- 
tor says hurry: Alice can’t live long.” 

Who was Alice? Who was the stranger? 
What mattered it? Those strong men were 
impressed with the stranger’s pleading. Their 
silent, inborn sympathies were his. 

The conductor handed back the telegram. 

"Well, friend, I feel sorry for you. You 


Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.” 51 

know we are under orders. We may go out 
yet. But when it comes to crossing that flood, 
if s the engineer’s danger, not mine,” he said, 
complacently, with a look that suggested to En- 
gineer Jim, he might go ahead, anyhow, just 
for the sake of the stranger, and Alice. The 
worried man also caught the suggestion. He 
implored Hawkins to make the run; he talked 
money, any amount Jim would ask. He men- 
tioned the name of a faithful, beloved daugh- 
ter, sick unto death, in her delirium calling 
the absent father. It was the conversation of 
only a moment, but Jim’s heart was moved. 

“Eh, George,” the engineer called to the 
conductor who had walked a few paces to- 
wards the rear of the train, “go give ’em 
the high sign, and we’ll see whether we can 
navigate that Pollywog or not,” and told the 
stranger to climb aboard and he’d “Make a 
stagger at it.” 

“Wide-open Jim” started on his last trip 
over the Pollywog. As the train pulled around 
the curve, a dispatcher ran out of the depot 
on to the platform, looked for a minute blankly 
at the disappearing train, then tore his hair 
and clenched his fist in mid-air alternately, and 
swore. “That d — n fool, I just got word from 
across the river that the South Lake track 
has gone out.” Upon calming down, he 
added: “Well, I’ll bet it’s ‘good-bye’ to old 
‘Wide-open Jim,’ ” 


52 Dumb Luck of ^Wide-Open Jim.” 


Three weeks later '‘Wide-open Jim” and his 
fireman “Windy” Walker still occupied cots 
side by side in the railroad hospital when a 
nurse ushered in a tall, elderly man and a 
frail, good-looking young woman. They asked 
to see the engineer who ran into the South 
Lake washout. 

Jim recognized the man as his excited pas- 
senger of three weeks before, and in his ea- 
gerness to grasp the outstretched hand, he rose 
up, supported by his elbow to a part sitting 
posture, for a moment forgetful of his broken 
leg. Then the pain racked him and he fell 
back with a groan. His head on his pillow, 
he shook hands with the visitor, warmly. Jim’s 
first words were an apology for his almost 
fatal failure to cross the South Lake flood. 
“But I couldn’t help it. I did my best. The 
blamed track was washed out, you know,” 
he added, regretfully, and after a pause, with 
audible emotion, Jim asked, “And did she, eh 
— did Alice die?” 

Jim held his breath in doubtful expectation, 
but his hopes for the best were reassured by 
the color that flushed up into the somewhat 
pale cheeks of the tall, graceful young woman 
at the man’s side. Her pale cheeks were too 
much of a contrast to her dark, wavy hair to 
be natural. The waning pallor of recent sick- 
ness was there. Her lips were still slightly 
compressed and the lines beneath her soft lu- 


Dumb Luck of ^‘Wide-Open Jim.” 53 

minous eyes told that fever had hollowed 
them. Jim saw it aH in a moment, even be- 
fore the elderly man had time to speak. He 
perceived she must be Alice. 

‘‘Ah, no,” the visitor replied, in a deep gut- 
teral laugh, apparently pleased by the inter- 
est Jim manifested. “This is my Alice and 
she is almost well now. She will soon be her- 
self again,” as he caught her arm and urged 
her forward. 

The look of surprise was on her face. 

“Why, father, you didn’t tell me any one 
was hurt. And was all this for me?” she 
turned her eyes towards Jim, questioningly. 

The injured man studied those eyes a mo- 
ment, attracted by their refined, appealing, 
clear expression. “Well, maybe it was; and 
Tm mighty glad it was for you, too, but Fm 
sorry I failed. You know the track was 
washed out and we couldn’t make it,” de- 
spondently ; then brightened up, “But Fm 
powerfully glad to know you’re better. Y’ 
must have been pretty sick, eh?” 

“Yes, Fm feeling strong again. This is 
the first day I have been out of the house, and 
papa brought me here on the first train to meet 
the bravest man he ever saw. I feel so sorry 
for you. Were you hurt very much?” she 
inquired, sympathetically. 

“Naw,” drawled Jim, “didn’t amount to 
much. I got my right leg busted in two 


54 Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.” 


places and will have to keep it in a plaster 
Paris boot for a while. But speakin’ of be- 
in’ brave. I don’t want you to overlook my 
fireman there. He deserves more credit than 
I do, because he got hurt worse.” 

Jim turned his head towards the cot next to 
him and continued: ^‘O, 'Windy’s’ asleep all 
this time. Guess we’d better let him sleep, 
then. He got cut up pretty badly about the 
head, and one foot was mashed. The doctor 
says fever’s set in, and it might go pretty hard 
with 'Windy.’ ” 

"Poor fellow,” said Alice, with much con- 
cern, and as she looked long at the bandaged 
head of the fireman, two big tears filled her 
eyes. Burying her face in her handkerchief, 
she was on the verge of giving way to tears 
at the thought that those injuries were suf- 
fered for her. 

But Engineer Jim sidetracked the tears. 
He exhorted laughingly: "Here, here, Miss 
Alice, push back those tears. Le’ me tell you 
somethin’. Why, there’s half a hundred fel- 
lows in this hospital every week who get hurt 
for nothin’ at all. 'Windy’ — his name’s Mr. 
Walker — and I are the luckiest fellows in the 
establishment since we found out we didn’t 
get hurt for nothin’. We got hurt for your 
sake, and weTe satisfied. So now, please don’t 
cry. It’s just a little vacation for us, y’ know.” 

After a ten-minute conversation the nurse 


Dumb Luck of ^‘Wide-Open Jim.” 55 

who had ushered the visitors into the ward 
whispered something in Alice’s ear about Mr. 
Hawkins not being very strong yet, so Alice 
and her father shook hands with the injured 
man, got his promise that when Walker be- 
came able, he would be told of the visit, and 
bade the engineer “Good-bye.” 

“And your name?” the elderly gentleman in- 
quired, upon taking his leave, and handing 
Jim a card. 

“O, my name is Jim Hawkins. ’Sense me 
for not telling you what it was before.” 

“Well, Mr. Hawkins, keep that card, and if 
you ever want a friend in need, just call on 
me. ‘ I hope the company rewarded you for 
the brave attempt to get the train across the 
flood?” He asked as though he took it for 
granted it already had done so. 

“Yes, you’re right, the company rewarded 
me,” Jim replied, demurely, and turned his 
head on his pillow with an air of dejection. 
But before he told about the “reward” Miss 
Alice interrupted,^ excitedly : 

“O! what was it? A gold medal?” 

“Gold medal? Yes, and then some.” (Jim 
made a humorous attempt at converting his 
dejected spirits into a bland smile.) “They dis- 
charged me. Said if I had obeyed my orders 
in the first place, there would have been no 
wreck; and, in the second place, if I had crept 
along the flooded track cautiously, the wreck 


S6 Dumb Luck of ^Wide-Open Jimd’ 

wouldn’t have been half so bad. But when 
they fished the engine up out of the mud hole 
and found her throttle wide open as though 
I was tryin’ to hit a mile-a-minute lick through 
the water, that settled it. But, shucks! that 
was the only thing to do, to get the best of 
that current. But the throttle was wide open, 
so they fired me.” 

Nothing had been said about the money talk 
the stranger put up before Jim started with 
that ill-fated train. In fact, Jim had not given 
it further thought, from the fact that he was 
unsuccessful in the attempt. But a few days 
after the first visit of Alice and her father, 
when Jim and Walker were in condition to 
stand for a little surprise party, the nurse 
handed each of them an envelope containing 
a check for $250, from William Tudor, the 
stranger. 

The visits of Alice Tudor and her father 
to the railroad hospital were repeated. With 
a woman’s sense of hospitality to the sick 
Alice saw to it that a fresh bouquet of flowers 
continually shed its cheery efiect throughout 
the ward from the little stand between the 
cots of Walker and Hawkins. 

With the passing of time, Alice more and 
more fully recuperated from her recent ill- 
ness. The fever pallor disappeared, and like 
day brightens from early dawn to full sun- 
light, the glow of health crept into her cheeks. 


Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.” 57' 

The frail young woman who, with her father, 
came to the hospital one day in search of the 
engineer who ran into the South Lake wash- 
out, now carried a graceful feminine stalwart- 
ness far removed from frailty. But time was 
not so auspicious to the recovering engine 
crew. The knitting of the shattered bones was 
a slow process of nature. Days lengthened 
into weeks, and weeks were numbered months 
before the “plaster Paris boot,'’ as Hawkins 
called it, was permanently removed from his 
leg, or the trepanned skull of the fireman was 
as sound as the original. During those hot, 
tedious days, what a soothing air of content- 
ment invaded the ward with the presence of 
the occasional visitor ! She seemed never for- 
getful of why or for whom those strong men 
suffered. Her congeniality and cheerfulness 
was to them a most pleasing expression of 
gratefulness. 

The only pang of dissatisfaction in Walker’s 
mind was that he couldn’t do himself justice 
for appearance’ sake. “Windy” was certainly 
a queer looking object. To enable the physi- 
cians to dress the wounds on his head the 
scalp had been shaved close, and offsetting the 
growth of bristly whiskers on his face, the 
jaunty bandages that encased his head and 
jaws, perpendicularly, put an odd dignity on 
undignified Walker. Yet, perhaps it was the 
very oddity of his makeup that brought what 


58 Dumb Luck of ^‘Wide-Open Jim.” 


Walker was prone to imagine, a partiality of 
smiles and sunshine in his direction from the 
fair visitor. Naturally a simple friendship 
sprung up, or rather continued to grow, be- 
tween Miss Alice and the two men. But it 
was not until the young engineer insisted that 
a barber come and put the disappearance act 
to his whiskers, each morning they expected 
Alice and her father, that Walker began to 
grow suspicious. Maybe Engineer Jim peered 
through and beyond the pales of simple friend- 
ship. 

“Wide-open Jim’’ did not seem to feel badly 
over the dethronement from engineer’s seat 
on the Pollywog run. Even before he was 
able to leave the hospital Mr. Tudor had con- 
fided to him that all efforts to get him rein- 
stated had been of no avail, so Mr. Tudor 
told Jim he had a job for him up on his ranch 
near Kington. 

At Kington Mr. Tudor was known as “Cat- 
tleking” Tudor, because he owned several cat- 
tle ranches. As Jim Hawkins had been raised 
on the farm, the offer was reasonable indeed. 
The old man was more than pleased when Jim 
accepted the offer with a glad hand. 

There is perhaps one more time an engineer 
has to depend on dumb luck than on the road. 
That is when the company informs him he is 


Dumb Luck of ‘Wide-Open Jim.” 59 

in need of another job. “Dumb luck,” as the 
railroad boys termed it, always had been a 
special companion of “Wide-open Jim,” and 
it seemed not to have deserted him after his 
name was dropped from the engineers’ pool. 
It wasn’t long until “Windy” Walker was 
telling among the boys about what a hit Jim 
had made with that rich old boy, “Cattleking” 
Tudor. 

But “Windy” was interested further with 
the welfare of his former engineer. To him- 
self he wondered how far that friendship be- 
tween pretty Alice and Jim had gone. The 
possibilities were greatly in Jim’s favor, 
Walker thought, for if Jim had proved-up on 
the elder Tudor’s friendship, surely that was 
the most important advance of the campaign 
— if there was any campaign. But time wore 
on, and. as no well-grounded rumor developed 
that that friendship had flourished. Walker 
took it for granted it had wilted away. 

Fully a year had passed since “Windy” had 
heard from Jim, when one day he received a 
letter and recognized the handwriting as that 
of the well-remembered friend of the past, 
“Wide-open Jim.” “Windy” reflected as he 
opened the envelope, “Mighty sporty station- 
ery, seems to me,” and after absorbing its sur- 
prising contents, with the news on his tongue’s 
end he rushed over to Duke’s shop to spread 
the information among the crowd that always 


6o Dumb Luck of “Wide-Open Jim.’* 

had attentive ears when ‘^Windy” was spokes- 
man. But “Windy” wasn’t very talkative 
right then. He preferred showing them the 
original. After an abbreviated explanation 
he simply passed the little square card around, 
and each man read with undisguised interest : 

“Mr. and Mrs. William Tudor announce 
the marriage of their daughter, Alice, to” — 
and when each got that far he just punctured 
the air with an exclamation. 

The card went the rounds. After Engineer 
Larkin, who was an old pool mate of “Wide- 
open Jim” Hawkins, took his turn at reading 
the announcement, he smiled a smile of satis- 
faction, and handing the card back to Walker, 
said dryly: “Well, old Lucky Jim Hawkins. 
S’pose now he’s mixed up with the plutocrats, 
it ain’t AVide-open Jim’ no longer. Well, 
that’s some more of Mr. Jim’s dumb luck!” 

“Yes,” responded Walker, as he fumbled 
over the card in making it fit in the envelope, 
“I reckon it might be dumb luck as far as 
Jim’s concerned — it’s leap year.” 


Dumb Luck of ^‘Wide-Open Jim.” 6i 


THE FATE OF THE 368. 

A ‘Vindy’' walker story. 

The discussion had drifted into a scientific 
channel. The audience at Duke’s shop was 
certainly a comical crowd to launch out on a 
perusal of scientific subjects; by analogy, a 
good deal like a bull-frog discoursing on classic 
music. The student brakemen had recently 
visited the air-brake instruction car, that had 
stopped over for a few days to show the rail- 
road men a few turns in operating Westing- 
house air brakes, and had gotten their heads 
full. But the gang didn’t stop at discussing 
air brakes. It went on a wild, reckless in- 
vasion of the liquid-air field and its late dis- 
coveries. 

Duke’s shop was an interesting shack. Duke 
was the railroad men’s shoemaker, a cripple 
who wheeled about in a home-made go-cart 
because his legs were paralyzed and hung limp 
and useless. But, cripple though he was, Duke 
was apparently a most happy man. His loud, 
cheery, “Hi, there! old timer!” rang out in 


62 The Fate of the 368. 

greeting the railroad men of the two di- 
visions as they went on trains or afoot, to and 
fro, past his shop; and the responding, “Hello, 
Duke! Howdy all come on?’’ was always 
spirited with much good will. The shop was 
only a few feet from the right of way. All 
day long, past it, the ponderous, lumbering 
locomotives and laden freight trains, the 
panting switch engines and the lithe, speeding 
passenger trains, fled with an intensely inter- 
esting, bustling air of excitement. The shop 
itself was a most unpretentious affair, about 
ten feet in each of its three dimensions. The 
front was the regulation, square, sign-board 
front, decorated along the upper part with 
dim, rambling letters, “DUKE’S SHOP.” 
Dim because time and weather had worn them 
away, and why shouldn’t they have done so? 
The letters disclosed information to no one; 
everybody knew it was Duke’s shop. 

There always was a gang at Duke’s shack. 
Inside, the low wooden bench that extended 
along the west wall, the visitors’ bench, was 
never vacant. A cordial welcome beamed 
forth from the big, red, round face of Duke, 
and was voiced by his chesty, hearty voice. 
Through the open door and the murky window 
panes filtered a cheerful air of contentment, 
while the ceiling’s stucco work of cobwebs 
and the dingy board walls that were most un- 
tastefully riddled with various and sundry ad- 


The Fate of the 368. 63 

vertising pictures, opera house posters, etc., 
seemed to animate the interior with an unpre- 
tending good humor that drove dull care away. 

But, after all, perhaps the principal attrac- 
tion at Duke’s place was the gang itself. It 
was never twice the same gang. It claimed 
no qualifications, secrets or party lines. En- 
gineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen, switch- 
men, insurance agents, shop men, office men, 
came and went, and mingled there in com- 
mon. None of them ever walked past Duke’s 
shop with a minute or two to spare without 
poking his head in the doorway to learn what 
the gang, lined up on the visitors’ bench, was 
discussing. Occasionally it was politics ; very 
seldom the bench was the scene of a scientific 
research; but more often, in fact, nearly al- 
ways, the gang was listening to the hair-rais- 
ing experiences of some loquacious brakeman 
or fireman. Duke’s shop was the story-teller’s 
Mecca, and as the truth was bounded neither 
on the north or south, east or west, a great 
deal of graphic originality crept into narra- 
tion. 

On the morning in question the gang at 
Duke’s was on an unprecedented tour in the 
scientific world. The boys had exhausted 
their knowledge of Westinghouse air brakes, 
and the carload of information in the instruc- 
tion car. One of the brakeys had read an 
article on liquid air and its wonders to per- 


64 The Fate of the 368. 

form. The subject was generally discussed. 
The brakeman advanced the theory that rail- 
roading would be revolutionized by running 
steam engines with liquid air, and that firemen 
would no longer “be a necessary evil”; they 
wouldn’t be needed. 

“Windy” Walker, fireman, held down a 
section of the bench that morning. “Windy” 
was always “there with the goods” when it 
came to story telling, but the scientific review 
didn’t seem to interest him. He had been 
silent most of the time the heavy discussion 
was in order. Silence wasn’t one of 
“Windy’s” personal characteristics, either. 
He had held in about as long as he could, 
when he volunteered to carry the scientific 
stage of the conversation into a little personal 
experience matter he had on his mind. 

“Liquid air?” “Windy” interrupted. “Huh! 
that’s nothing new. They used to run en- 
gines with that stuff long time ago. Had a 
little ’sperience along that line myself.” 

“O, no! I guess your ’speriences are all 
of the hot-air sort; that’s what you’re givin’ 
us right now,” retorted the brakey who had 
volunteered a flyer in the liquid-air discussion. 

Walker, as well as the rest of the crowd, 
recognized that it was more liable to be a piece 
of hot-air strategy than one of the liquid-air 
sort, and Walker laughed with the rest; but 
he didn’t back down. 


The Fate of the 368. 65 

“Naw, sir; liquid air, the genuine article. 
It was when old 'Wide-open Jim’ Hawkins 
and I were on the Pollywog passenger run. 
Well, you remember when that little runt of a 
368 ran away and flew into flinders, just as if 
she had a firebox full of dynamite bombs. O, 
that was about three years ago. Well, that 
was liquid air that did that,” and Walker put 
on such a serious, matter-of-fact look, as if 
challenging dispute, that the other fellows just 
laughed and left the way clear for Walker. 

Duke ceased plying his hammer a moment, 
looked up from his bench, across the rampart 
of old shoes that surrounded him, and said, 
encouragingly, "The white light’s out, 
'Windy’ ; you’ve got your orders. Steam up.” 

A smile of satisfaction beamed over Walker’s 
face, and he continued : "You know where the 
Pollywog leaves the Big Turtle valley up 
there at that clump of cottonwood trees on the 
hill — the town’s name is Cottonwood Point, 
a dinky little, old, God-forsaken lookin’ place. 
Well, one day when 'Wide-open Jim’ and I 
reached the Point, on out run, we found that 
neither of the ejectors were workin’, and, by 
jimminy! we come to find out, there wasn’t 
hardly a drap of water in the tank. We knew 
right off we were in it good and plenty, be- 
cause no one ever heard of any water being up 
there on that sunburned desert, ’specially in 
the swelterin’ month of August. It was 


66 


The Fate of the 368. 

August then, as I remember. The little old 
town has about a hundred dried-up, anti- 
quated inhabitants, who always have lived 
there and always will. It was up to us to rus- 
tle some water, enough to cover the crown 
sheet, or dump our fire, so I went to the sta- 
tion agent and asked him if there was any 
show for a feller gettin’ a barrel or two of 
water at the Point. 

'‘He says: 'Water? Why, we ain’t see’d 
any water up here since last June, ’ceptin’ when 
we’d go to th’ Big Turtle on a picnic, or some- 
thin’ like that, and bring back a little, just as 
a sort o’ curiosity. Ef it’s a drink ye want, 
I should think a leetle less than a barrel full’d 
do ye,’ and he got right confidential, as though 
mebby there might be a United States revenue 
collector, or a Prohibitionist, around, and whis- 
pered, 'Ye kin git a pretty good brand of ole 
Kentucky rye down there at Swaller’s drug 
store. Ye wanter ask him fer a pint of snake 
cure, cross yer breast like this, wink twice 
with each eye, draw yer hand acrost yer fore- 
head, this-a-way, and then he’ll give ye it all 
right. Them’s the secret signs, ye know. 
He’s got to be kind o’ sus-speecious of stran- 
gers ; but this is a "wet” town ; y’ kin bet it is. 
Constable Schutsenschumer’ — or some jaw- 
breakin’ Dutch name he tried to get off — 
'don’t care if Swaller sells it; come down to 


The Fate of the 368. 67 

bare facts, the constable likes it himself pretty 
much.’ 

“I stopped the jibberin’ idiot, and finally got 
it through his puddin’ head what we wanted 
the water for. He looked mighty serious. 

“ ‘Nary a drap up here that I know of,’ he 
said. ‘Yet they call it a “wet” town for a 
Prohibition State.’ 

“Well, I started back to tell my hog-head 
what crooked straits we was in, and got out- 
side the shanty door, when an idea struck the 
agent. It struck him so hard he hollered, and 
I went back to see what he knew. 

“ ‘I hav’ an idear,’ says ’e. 

“ ‘Have ye,’ I said, doubtin’ like. ‘I’m from 
Missouri; you’ve got t’ show me.’ 

“ ‘Why,’ says ’e, ‘b’lieve I can help ye get 
yer train out of th’ city. I know where y kin 
git some steam,’ 

“Well, he had me goin’ south, an’ I asked 
him how in thunder he was goin’ t’ get steam 
without water. He directed me to Professor 
Nomuch, who lived up on the top side of the 
burg; said he was an inventor — made steam 
out of air with some kind of a horse-power 
riggin’. 

“Well, I headed over and asked ‘Wide-open 
Jim’ if he was willin’ to do a little ’speriment- 
in’ to get them passengers over to Fountain, 
the end of the branch. ’Course Jim was longin’ 
to buck up against any kind of a proposition 


68 


The Fate of the 368. 

for the good of the company, and told me to 
tote along my steam manufacturer. So I hiked 
off up to that would-be professor’s lean-to, 
sweat rollin’ off me as though I was a wet 
sponge, and some one stepped on me. When 
I reached the old boy’s shanty he was out 
catchin’ doodle bugs with a fisherman’s landin’ 
net. He was a powerfully polite, stuck-up 
specimen; introduced himself to me as Pro- 
fessah Johnathan Isaac Newton Nomuch, a 
Ph.D., D.D., A. B. C, X. Y. Z., promulgator 
of modern science, investigator, promoter and 
manufacturer of perpetual motion machines, 
liquidized atmosphere specialist, and a whole 
scad of handles on to his name, blamed if I 
knew what they all meant. But I made him 
quit talkin’ his tomfoolery, and got down to 
business. Then I first learned about his liquid 
air. He said he had tried it on steam engines, 
and a few drops would run an engine an hour. 
That suited me finer ’an silk, and I told him to 
go ahead with his rat killin’. He put me wise 
on some of the other ’speriments he had made 
with it. Said he put a drop in the ear of the lazi- 
est man in Cottonwood Point, — and I’ll bank 
on it that meant the laziest man in the whole 
State of Kansas — when he was asleep. The 
lazy hummer never had been known to work, 
but he jumped up and put in forty acres of 
corn and forty in potatoes in one day, and has 
been workin’ like a beaver ever since. That 


The Fate of the 368. 69 

made me skeered of the blame stuff, and I told 
him to be sure and not let any of that magical 
wetness get in my ears. 

“The old boy had a lot of apparatus rigged 
up in his barn loft. He went up on the roof 
and began swingin’ a scoop shovel as though 
he was firin’ a ten-wheeler. I couldn’t see 
anything doin’. I thought the duffer must be 
crazy. He said that was his liquid air ma- 
chine, and he was fillin’ the air vats with fresh 
air. Well, that was about the limit, I thought. 
Then he got down, mixed up a conglomeration 
out of half a dozen bottles he called his labo- 
ratory, poured the mixture in the air vat, 
screwed the top down on it, and said he would 
apply his 1,000-horse power plant to get some 
pressure, and it would turn into liquid. He 
got out a bony old nag, hitched to a merry- 
go-round lookin’ paraphernalia outside and 
starred round. I hollered and asked him where 
the other 999 horses were, and he slowed down 
and informed me : This animal is no ordinary 
hoss, please, sir. This is a i,ooo-hoss power 
boss, please, sir.’ 

“That pelican-necked, shaggy-headed, bean- 
eyed professah was a mystery to me. I asked 
him how he made out that was a thousand- 
horse power hoss, and he said it was because 
he had dropped a little liquid air in the quaa- 
ruped’s ear. 

“He had made about a dozen rounds with 


70 


The Fate of the 368. 

his ' hoss-power machine, when I noticed the 
liquid began droppin’ off a spigot into a bucket. 
I was afraid to get near the output for fear 
some of it might splash on me, and I would 
suddenly get stout and take a notion to go 
back, hook myself up to that train, and pull it 
over the hills to Fountain. The old man drew 
off a quart of the liquid air into a bottle, and 
we jogged off back to the train. The pas- 
sengers were getting terribly impatient, and 
were suffering with the heat. Mr. Nomuch, 
in a very mysterious way he had, tickled me 
by tellin' us to put out the fire, as it wasn’t 
needed at all, so I dumped the grates and quit 
shovelin’ coal for the rest of the trip. 

“He made us oil up all the engine’s bearings, 
and when we said to get busy with his steam 
maker, he put a few drops of that fontonious 
liquid into the exhaust valves, escape valves, 
dropped some in the safety valve, and said he 
thought it would seep through. Jim and I 
were in the cab. I had my feet up against the 
boiler head as proud as a millionaire to think 
that I didn’t have to shovel any more coal, 
when all of a sudden the little craft began to 
tremble. The Nomuch freak yelled to look 
out, she had commenced steamin’, so just to 
test her Jim opened the throttle to the fast 
notch. She didn’t get any forward motion 
for a few seconds, and then with an exhaust 
that sounded like a torpedo, the old 368 jumped 


The Fate of the 368. 711 

plum out of her boots, came down on the track 
all right, and just fairly flew. She started 
off so suddenly the conductor didn’t get time 
to say ‘All aboard,’ and some of the passengers 
were left to the mercy of the hills at Cotton- 
wood Point station. 

“I never seen ‘Wide-open Jim’ look like he 
was scared but just that once, and he did get 
pale around the gills, it was such a sudden 
surprise party on him. The bloomin’ throttle 
was wide open, and Jim couldn’t shut ’er. 
When I volunteered to help him I guess he 
sort o’ realized he was a little shaky, so he 
braced up and brave-like said to let her go 
Gallagher a while. The way the puny little 
368 romped over those hills and back down 
into the Big Turtle valley, made them pas- 
sengers think they were travelin’ on the tail 
end of a streak of lightnin’. A mile a minute 
was a slow schedule ’side of the rate that skit- 
tish ‘Old Nancy’ promenaded. 

“By the time we had traveled about twenty 
or thirty miles, Jim and me seen we couldn’t 
stop ’er. I came down off my perch and tried 
to help him shut that throttle, but we couldn’t 
equalize the pressure. The throttle didn’t 
budge. We hung on to it till the blame lever 
snapped. With the throttle busted we cer- 
tainly thought our checks were due at the un- 
dertaker’s counter. We began doin’ some tall 
figurin’ on how to get out of the muss. I 


72 


The Fate of the 368. 

started to jump, but Jim glued on to me, and 
tor me Fd better shoot myself than to jump. 
Then Jim got his presence of mind battery in 
operation and started back over the pile of 
coal in the tender, tellin’ me to follow suit. 
We got back to the blind baggage, and Jim 
says ‘we will just desert her, cut her loose from 
the train, and save the passengers anyhow.’ So 
we uncoupled her, and as that little galloper 
and the coaches parted company, she just 
snorted, went off with a whoop, and loped 
down the line. 

“But Jim and me got the train to Fountain 
all right by just gaugin’ the speed with the 
handbrake on the mail coach, because it was 
down grade part of the way. We landed in 
front of the depot, square dab in the right 
place by twistin’ the brake just right. Con- 
ductor and passengers even didn’t know the 
little old 368 had gotten out of our class for 
speed and left us. 

“Well, on that one run Jim and me decided 
we got our fill of liquid air. If anybody 
would offer us any more we probably would 
decline with a brickbat. The company never 
did find out we were ’sperimentin’ when the 
368 went to smash. That little old engine sim- 
ply went the limit; danced her fill and then paid 
the fiddler. She rammed right down into the 
Fountain yards faster’n hell’s automobile, 
threatenin’ to scatter an epidemic of wrecked 


73 


The Fate of the 368. 

box cars through the yards, when she over- 
taxed her ability to hang together. She just 
went to pieces like an infernal machine ; ripped 
out a great big holler, and she was all in 
splinters. There didn’t enough of her scrap 
iron light in any one place to make a wheel- 
barrow load. They tell me it rained pulver- 
ized scrap iron all over that part of the country 
for an hour. About that time the No. 368 
was crossed off the company’s books as de- 
ceased, but she died hard. 

‘‘Tell ye now, when it comes right down to 
talkin’ scientifics, it’s my candid opinion that 
liquid air is a mighty dangerous hobby, ’nd 
that it is too fractious an ingredient to mix 
with a locomotive, ’nd that it never will be used 
to revolutionize railroadin’. Them’s my sen- 
timents.” 


THE GOLDEN RULE TRAINMASTER. 


Cold, bleak and drizzly was the night when 
Trainmaster Ed was killed in the west end of 
the yards by an extra freight. The night it- 
self was enough to give a yard man the blues, 
but aside from the dismal weather, it was a 
night of sorrow. There were two accidents 
in the yards that night. 

In the afternoon there had been a little 
‘‘shake-up” of the night yard force before 
Trainmaster Ed Stoddard. It was over a lit- 
tle unpleasantness between the night yardmas- 
ter and night switch foreman of the west end 
crew. The investigation showed up the 
switchman in a bad light, and he was modestly 
reprimanded by the official. 

The yardmaster’s story was that he had or- 
dered the foreman to make up and send out 
“Second 38” ahead of a “red ball” freight, east 
bound, and the foreman refused to comply 
with the order. It was more convenient for 
the switch foreman to make up the red ball 
stuff first and get it out of the way, as that 
train was nearly ready when the “Second 38” 


The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 75 

pulled into the yards. But considering the 
fact that the second section of No. 38 was 
partly made up of ten carloads of cattle which 
had been on their feet fifteen hours, the train 
with the livestock should have received the 
first consideration, as the yardmaster ordered. 

Switch Foreman Golden put in no defense. 
He was in bad humor, and, in fact, let his ill 
feelings overcome his common sense. Golden 
said a good many things to Trainmaster Ed 
he wouldn’t have dared to pour on to any other 
official. But he knew Trainmaster Stoddard’s 
custom was to bridle his tongue and not fight 
back at his men, so he took advantage of Stod- 
dard’s good nature. The trainmaster was 
painfully aware of the fact. 

‘‘Well, Golden,” calmly spoke the official, 
after the switch foreman had ceased his ha- 
rangue, “I thought you were a man with better 
sense than to talk like that. I don’t believe 
in it myself, and of course I can’t permit the 
men to use that kind of language to me. I 
didn’t intend to mar your standing any on this 
little trouble,” and he hesitated a minute, “but 
your actions make it necessary for riie to give 
you ten demerit marks. Now I want this 
matter dropped, and do not want to hear of any 
more trouble between you and the yardmaster. 
We have to work with unity, or the yards can’t 
be kept clear. I think I will be down to-night 
to see how things are moving.” 


76 The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 

Golden looked at him with dogged surprise. 
A most strange thing for an official to do was 
to tell ahead of time when he would drop down 
to see how the men are working. The switch- 
man didn’t take it in the right light. He con- 
sidered it an insinuation that the trainmaster 
thought he couldn’t tend to his own business 
without being watched and made to. Golden 
did not reply, but as he opened the door to 
leave, he grumbled to himself: ‘Tiope to hell 
if you do y’ll get run over.” 

Golden didn’t mean what he said, any more 
than he intended that the trainmaster should 
hear it. But his anger excited him to speak 
louder than really was his intention. The 
trainmaster heard the switchman’s sullen wish 
and looked up in mute surprise. Golden 
slammed the door and left the building in bit- 
ter resentment of his own as well as the train- 
master’s action. 

Trainmaster Stoddard left his office an hour 
or two later, the day’s work finished, with a 
heavy heart. It always had been his custom 
to treat his men kindly. When they were be- 
fore him for mistakes they had or had not 
made, he talked to them more as a friend than 
a hard-hearted, official demagogue, as most 
officials were wont to do. Other officials who 
knew of and were envious of Stoddard’s popu- 
larity with the men, complained of him being 
''too easy.” There is an unwritten, but much 


The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 77 

practiced, law with some officials that there 
must be an ostentatious lot of browbeating on 
the part of the “brass collars,” or railroad men 
can’t and won’t do their duty. But Stoddard 
did not believe in it. He was one of the few 
who had successfully used what some had 
termed, with an attempt at sarcasm, the “moral 
suasion” method. He had worked up to his 
official position from brakeman, and “knew the 
ropes.” He had had experiences with loud- 
mouthed officials. For his part, Stoddard 
treated the men as fellow-men, in the real sense 
of the word. Along the line he was known as 
“The Golden Rule Trainmaster.” ' 

Yet at times he grew discouraged. Occa- 
sionally his resigned, friendly disposition was 
grounds for his men to overstep the limits of 
propriety in their dealings with him; some- 
times they took advantage of his good nature, 
as Golden had done. It pained him to have 
trouble with his men, and the bout with the 
switch foreman that afternoon left a weight 
on his heart. He sometimes questioned him- 
self if, after all, it paid to be kind to his men. 

Unfortunately for him. Trainmaster Ed 
kept his word and went to the yards that night 
to look around. It was not an unusual thing 
for him to do. He walked down towards the 
west end, and was surprised to see things in 
such bad shape. The customary rattle and 
bang of switch engines and box cars was not 


yS The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 

audible. The stillness that prevailed carried 
with it a sense of mysteriousness. Over at the 
round-house, two hundred yards away, the 
clang! clang! of an engine bell broke the dis- 
tant monotony of the night, and an exploded 
safety valve roared away morosely. ’Way back 
in the east end an incoming freight train rum- 
bled as though it were thunder, threatening 
to increase the drizzling rain. But why the 
silence in the yards? Long rows of box 
cars, dimly silhouetted against the dark sky, 
melting away into darkness east and west, 
stood motionless. The glare of an engine 
headlight, on the second main track far down 
in the west end, made the long stretches of 
damp rails look like streaks of silver, and here 
and there, along the tracks, the smooth, wet 
surface of a tie, glistened white. Trainmas- 
ter Ed, with hands thrust deep in his overcoat 
pockets, walked towards the dazzling array of 
headlights and switch lights in the west end 
of the yards. 

As he neared the fiery headlight of the loco- 
motive standing on the second main, he noticed 
a crowd of men around it, bobbing to and fro, 
apparently trying to replace the engine on the 
track with crowbars and jacks. But upon 
reaching the scene, that peculiar, intuitive per- 
ception which sometimes possesses a man, and 
causes him to ask, ‘‘Who’s hurt?” held sway 
over Stoddard. For a moment he stood spell- 


The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 79 

bound. They told him Switchman Golden 
had been run down and was lying beneath the 
tender. No, not fatally injured — only lost 
one foot beneath the wheels. The engine had 
backed down on him from the east, and he 
didn’t see the danger because there was no 
headlight on the rear end of the tender, as all 
switch engines should have. But one truck — 
two wheels — had passed over Golden’s leg 
when the engine was stopped. The crushed 
leg was entangled between the wheel and the 
brake beam, and to release it without further 
danger and pain to the injured man, the two 
yard switch crews were raising the rear end 
of the tender on jacks, thus placing the wheel 
free of the rail, so it could be rotated by hand 
until the crushed limb was released. Stretched 
out beneath the engine tender. Golden directed 
the work, between groans. The trainmaster 
immediately took an active hand in the opera- 
tions. Notch by notch the massive iron car 
was raised. The trainmaster removed his light 
overcoat, folded it several times, and, crawling 
under the edge of the car, placed it under 
Golden’s head for a pillow, in a pool of water 
that had gathered in a slight depression of the 
ground. 

It was then Golden recognized his trainmas- 
ter, with not a little surprise. "‘Why, that 
you, Ed?” And settled his head with a rest- 
ful sigh on the improvised pillow. '^Gee, that’s 


8o The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 


awful good of you, Ed, and I don’t deserve it, 
either,” he added, recalling the scene in the 
trainmaster’s office that afternoon. “I meant 
to get those trains all out in double quick time 
to-night, just to please you, Ed, but I guess,” 
he hesitated uncertainly, “I guess Eve made up 
my last train.” And he laughed sickishly. 

“Don’t worry. Golden; it will be all right. 
Don’t worry about trains. You’re standing it 
bully, old boy. Just keep up your nerve and 
we’ll have you out in a few minutes.” 

The trainmaster had no more than crawled 
out from under the engine tender than the dis- 
tant whistle of a locomotive sounded in the 
west. Ed started, and with fumbling haste 
drew his watch from his pocket. “Nine fif- 
teen,” he said to himself, and with a sudden 
move turned, grabbed up a switchman’s lan- 
tern, and ran west down the track, calling, as 
he started, “There comes No. lo.” 

With all the systematic insight drilled into 
an able railroad man, Trainmaster Stoddard in 
a second perceived that the approaching train 
was the fast passenger. No. lo, and that it 
traveled on the second main track, the same 
track on which the switch engine was standing, 
Had .Switchman Golden been able to direct his 
engine he would have been on the lookout for 
No. 10, and the way would have been clear. 
But in his agony all this had escaped him. 

The passenger train always whistled at a 


The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 8i 

crossing half a mile west of the yard end. 
That meant it had about three-quarters of a 
mile to travel before, unless interrupted, it 
would crash into the rear end of the switch 
engine and grind poor Golden’s body into the 
dust. The passenger train covered that first 
half mile, to the yard end, in less than a min- 
ute. That same minute the trainmaster, 
wildly swinging his lantern, rushed on down 
the track until the oncoming train, bearing 
down on him with the wings of the wind, was 
within a few feet of him. Still swinging his 
lantern, he jumped to the next track to the 
right of the second main track — to the right, 
because the engineer’s is the right side of the 
cab. The engineer caught the signal, and the 
speeding passenger train was stopped barely in 
time to prevent a collision with the switch en- 
gine. 

But in his frantic efforts to stop the danger- 
ous approach of the passenger train, the train- 
master did not think to see whether or not any 
trains were approaching on the track to which 
he last stepped. He knew better? Of course 
he did. It was probably the first time he had 
ever been so careless, but with mind bent on 
saving the injured switchman’s life, he neg- 
lected being cautious of his own safety. In 
moving from the second main track to avoid 
the speeding passenger train, he stepped in 
front of a westbound extra freight which was 


82 The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 


pulling out of the yards. In one fatal moment 
he was struck down and crushed beneath the 
wheels of the engine. 

Trainmaster Ed died half an hour after the 
accident. Upon regaining consciousness a 
few minutes after he was run down, his first 
cpestion was, '‘Did they get Golden out all 
right ?” 

The information that he had saved the 
switchman’s life, put a satisfied smile on his 
lips. He closed his eyes and whispered, "Then 
it wasn’t altogether in vain, after all.” 

The two men were laid side by side in the 
depot baggage room. When they brought 
Trainmaster Ed in on a car door for a stretcher 
and placed him beside the wounded switch- 
man it was pitiful to hear Golden, as he learned 
how and why it all happened. Those men, who 
had parted a few hours before so unpleasantly 
in the trainmaster’s office, now met like 
brothers. Golden, almost sobbing, begged for- 
giveness. Stoddard told him he had forgiven 
him before he left the trainmaster’s office. 
He had changed his mind and did not place the 
ten demerit marks to the switchman’s credit. 

After all, most railroad accidents are alike 
to a great degree. A man is beneath the cruel 
wheels ; the news spreads like a flash, and some- 
where at the little home that is waiting for his 
return the messenger of death knocks, and with 
a gulp in his throat tries to tell that some one 


The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 83 

is hurt, and — well, no more information is 
necessary. Some one inside cries : ‘‘Yes, I 
knew it would come some time! I knew it 
would.” 

The crowd, mostly curious onlookers, about 
the injured man, seems conscious of some one’s 
approach, and begins to break away; reverent- 
ly it withdraws, and a woman, perhaps a sis- 
ter, a mother, a wife, a daughter, hastens to 
his side, and on her knees catches the feeble 
voice : “Don’t cry 1 Don’t cry !* It’s all right 
— it’s all right.” 

And such was the death of Trainmaster Ed, 
and how bravely he died. The battlefield has 
its recognized heroes, and why not every day 
life? To die like Ed Stoddard died is deserv- 
ing of a hero’s epitaph. He died forgiving 
those who had wronged him; he died in vain 
endeavoring to appease the sorrow of those 
who loved him. 

A few days later, the afternoon set for the 
funeral, there was a scarcity of men on duty 
in every department of the railroad at that 
division point. The men did their last hom- 
age to one they respected and loved. The 
auditorium of the little church was filled, the 
anterooms and vestibules were crowded, and 
outside, about the door, stood a group of stal- 
wart men with heavy hearts. 

The pulpit rostrum was a bank of flowers, 
their perfume and loveliness mutely telling a 


84 The Golden Rule Trainmaster. 

story of love. And as it was whispered 
through the audience that the large anchor of 
white roses, supported upright on top of the 
coffin, was senf by Switchman Golden, no one 
wondered how he could afford such an elabo- 
rate tribute. 

Railroad men as a class are not inclined to 
make a superficial show of respect for dead 
officials. If they respected him when he lived 
they will say so when he is dead ; if he was 
not respected when living, there will be no 
overdue display of sorrow at his funeral on 
their part. And after Ed Stoddard’s death, 
when his men said : ‘‘I never heard him swear 
at his men,” “I never saw him in an angry 
mood,” “I never heard any one, even men dis- 
charged by him, say a mean word about him,” 
it signified that the “Golden Rule Trainmaster” 
was properly so called because he lived up to it. 

Perhaps Trainmaster Ed sometimes had oc- 
casion to question himself, “Does it pay?” 
But it is plain there is only an affirmative 
answer. Those who studied his methods or 
took his life for an example say so. Other 
officials pass and are forgotten by the men 
under them almost before their places are 
filled. But Trainmaster Ed still lives in the 
hearts of his men because he treated them as 
fellow-men, and “did as he would be done by.” 


THE LAP-ORDER AT KENTON. 


AN operator's story. 

“I NEVER put much belief in ghosts/’ said 
the big, fat, good-naturqd dispatcher, as he 
closed the telegraph key at the close of the 
day’s work, picked up his partly smoked cigar 
and leaned his chair back against the wall with 
a comfortable air of congeniality, “until Jerry 
Conner came down from the postal office up- 
town and took a job on the half-and-half trick 
under me. I was head operator on the night 
shift here then. After I watched that fellow 
work for about a week, I laid awake off hours 
tryin’ to get up arguments that there were no 
such things as ghosts, and if there were, they 
couldn’t work a half-and-half trick pounding 
brass in a telegraph office. I tried to convince 
myself that way for Conner’s sake, for if I 
ever saw a ghost running at large, it was Con- 
ner. Actually, he was the nearest item to a 
living skeleton I ever saw. And as for the 
ghost, not so much because he was so slim — 
he was transparent, but those eyes ! Uh, they 


86 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

haunt me yet. Connor had great, big, care- 
worn eyes, no color in particular, sort o’ steel 
color, I guess, and they tapered to the inside 
corners with great, deep wrinkles, that met 
above the bridge of the nose in a terribly wor- 
ried expression. A look at Conner would’ve 
made you think over all the troubles you’d had 
for the last ten years. Then he had a straight- 
haired, droopy mustache, forming almost a 
circle about his mouth, that only added misery 
to the aspect. To make a long story short, 
that fellow looked like he had cheated some 
undertaker out of the burial service by kicking 
the lid off the coffin and escaping. 

‘‘But when it comes to dealing in personali- 
ties, you can include me, too. I tip the beam 
at 220 pounds, and as for Conner, I figured 
it that if operators were retailing at five dol- 
lars a hundredweight, Conner would bring 
about two dollars and a half, net. He and I 
were such extremes that the fellows used to 
josh us and wonder why we didn’t get diplo- 
matic and strike a physical compromise. And 
I certainly would liked to have done so for 
Conner’s sake, because that poor duffer just 
got thinner and thinner every day. The fel- 
lows tried to tell him he’d get fat if he would 
lay aside that corncob pipe long enough to let 
the nicotine seep out of his system, but that 
didn’t count. He’d say their arguments were 
puny, and just point at me. ‘Then why don’t 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 87 

that duffer get skinny ?’ he’d ask, and the boys 
couldn’t say a word, because I’ll admit I was 
pullin’ on a cigar stub most of the time. The 
wise boys couldn’t put up any more arguments 
on that proposition, and just to show them they 
couldn’t pull any no-tobac wool over his eyes, 
Conner would reload his old weed-burner with 
a fresh load of long cut, smile sickish-like, and 
say : 'Why, I wouldn’t last five minutes with- 
out my smokin’s. It’s nerve energy.” 

But some of the boys decided they would 
test it. They put heads together, and one 
morning a neatly painted sign appeared on the 
wall of the operators’ quarters, ‘NO SMOK- 
ING ALLOWED WHEN ON DUTY.’ It 
was all a put-up job, of course. The boys 
had hung the sign up there. They had put me 
‘next,’ beforehand, and I told them, just to 
work the game on Conner, I would pass up 
the cigar-consuming business while at work 
for a month at least. I could quit, and 
wouldn’t miss my Havanas very much. 

“Well, you ought to have seen the expres- 
sion on Conner’s ghostly countenance when he 
saw that sign. The fellows who put the sign 
up there of course exhibited a great splurge 
of counterfeit surprise upon having their at- 
tention called to it, and one of them told Con- 
ner the general superintendent had ordered 
like signs to be displayed in all the operators’ 
offices. That sign just cooked old Conner’s 


88 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

goose. The fellows tried to console him by 
saying it would be a good thing for him to 
quit spoiling so much tobacco, but really the 
thought of it seemed to make him feel worse. 

“After that Conner didn’t smoke on duty — 
that is, for a long time — and he just pined 
away as though he had lost his last friend 
He smoked like a blast furnace off duty, but 
that indulgence didn’t substitute, when he was 
on duty, for his ‘nerve energy.’ 

“Conner was one of the best operators that 
ever rapped off the Morse code. He could 
chase it off fast enough to make the fellow’s 
head swim at the other end of the line. But 
after he had to cut out the tobacco habit, Con- 
ner sort o’ lost confidence in himself. As a 
kind of stimulant, he took on the strenuous 
habit of reading in the daily papers all he 
could find about railroad wrecks, especially 
where thickheaded operators and dispatchers 
were to blame. Every noon when Conner 
came to work — ^lie went on duty at noon — he 
would have a pocket full of dailies, and hail 
us fellows with a ‘Say, boys, did you see about 
that head-end mankiller they had over on the 
Wabash yesterday?’ or, ‘Did you read the ac- 
count of that lap-order that put a passenger 
train in the ditch ?’ or, ‘About the operator who 
committed suicide when he discovered he had 
forgotten to deliver an order and killed half 
a hundred passengers?’ or, ‘About the tower 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 89 

man who let the mail train through the block 
when he should have had the red light out?’ 
Every day Conner had a new one, until the 
fellows who always made it a point not to 
bother about other operators’ griefs and mis- 
fortunes, said they couldn’t stand for it, and 
got the vigilance committee to make old Con- 
ner pass around the papers to those who 
wanted to read the ‘yellow’ stuff about the 
man killers, and to quit harping about the 
wrecks. 

“Well, the anti-tobacco scheme didn’t help 
Conner. He got so thin his cheeks looked as 
hollow as scoop shovels, and his hands were 
bony and lank. Occasionally Conner would 
put his head in one hand, weary-like, while he 
rattled off the messages. He always had been 
a clear-headed fellow, but now he complained 
of feeling groggy. I always thought what 
really was the matter with Conner was that he 
doped his head so full of accounts of railroad 
wrecks that the constant fear that he might 
rush off a lap-order, or fall asleep at his trick, 
completely unnerved him Things got worse. 
One night about ten o’clock, after eight hours’ 
work, he said he was so nervous he had to 
quit, and left his trick after balling up a train 
order. 

“Conner came to work as usual next day, 
and that evening I told him if he wasn’t feel- 
ing well he’d better lay off. He then con- 


90 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

fided to me if he could only smoke he would be 
all right, and I wish now Fd told him to go 
ahead and smoke if he wanted to, but I prom- 
ised the jokers who put up the ‘superintend- 
ent’s' sign that I would stay by the deal for a 
month, and the four weeks weren’t quite up 
yet, so I tried to jolly him, and told him how 
easy it was for me to cut out the nicotine 
when on duty. But Conner took it real se- 
rious. His big, hollow eyes yawned pite- 
ously, and his lower jaw dropped with an ex- 
pression of despondency. That night I 
watched Conner a little closer than usual. 
Once, when there was nothing doing on his 
wires, I noticed that he dropped off into a 
little doze, but I just let him snooze, and lis- 
tened for any calls on his wires. And when 
a call did sound, by sort of inborn instinct, I 
guess, Conner jumped awake with a start just 
as I was going to punch him in the ribs, and 
took the message all right. It was going on 
midnight when again I noticed that Conner 
was asleep with his head in his hands. I lis- 
tened for any call over his wires, and was 
pretty sure there was none, but all of a sud- 
den Conner sprang to his feet with a twitch- 
ing, stary look in his eyes, as though he had 
been aroused suddenly from sleep. He held 
one hand to his head, the other extended in 
front of him as though he were listening to 
something. He stood that way for a mo- 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 91 

merit. Then I said, ‘Why, what’s the matter, 
old boy? Have a bad dream?’ 

“I hadn’t finished my question, when he let 
out an unearthly yell, and cried in a wailing 
sort of a voice : ‘A lap-order, a lap-order at 
Kenton! O Lord! I knew I would do it! I 
knew I would do it!’ and he sort o’ reeled out 
of the room, grabbing his hat as he went. 
After he had slammed the door and started 
down the hall I could hear the poor duffer 
sobbing as though his heart was broken. 

‘T immediately jumped to his key and an- 
swered, ‘What’s that?’ There was no answer. 
‘Is this Kenton ?’ I rattled off. Still no answer. 
Then I called, ‘KT, KT, KT.’ That was Ken- 
ton’s call, but there was no reply. I waited 
only a moment, and then told the other fellows 
to take care of things, as T was going to follow 
Conner. 

“The other operators were as excited as I 
was, and were standing about the key. One 
of them turned away and sniffed, ‘That poor 
devil’s crazy.’ That was just what I thought; 
that was why I wanted to follow him. It was 
a dismally cold night, late in December, I be- 
lieve. Snow had been falling all night, and 
the ground was covered about four inches 
deep. I jumped into my overcoat and hat as 
I chased out into the hall, and noticed as I 
left the room that Conner didn’t take his over- 
coat. I hiked down the hall, down to the foot 


92 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

of the stairs and called, 'O! Conner!’ The 
night was dismally still — no wind, and snow- 
flakes filling the air. Just enough moonlight 
shone through the hazy snow clouds to give 
the appearance of early dawn. I looked 
out the door and called again, but no one 
answered. 

‘‘The night ticket agent was just closing up 
business after the 11.30 o’clock train pulled 
out. I asked him if he had seen Conner. He 
got mighty interested, and said, ^Why, yes — 
or no. But what in the dickens was all that 
racket up-stairs just a minute ago. I heard 
some one stumblin’ down stairs, and he 
sounded like he either had the agony of the 
gizzard or was doing some tall laughin’, one 
of the two. What was the matter?’ 

^Well, you idiot, did you see him? Which 
way did he go?’ I was very much excited. 
I’ll admit, and the ticket agent was so mud- 
dled over the way I went at him that he 
couldn’t gather his wits. 

“ 'Why, yes, I saw him. I mean, I saw 
some one, but who was it, I asked you?’ he 
stammered. 

‘T was out of temper. I knew the agent 
was out of work until the morning trains, so 
I took his hat and overcoat off the nearby 
hook, socked his lid down on his head, grabbed 
him by the arm, and said to 'Come on. We 
have to find that fellow.’ He drew back long 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 93 

enough to see that everything was locked up 
all right, then he came along willingly, locked 
the office door, and we started. 

“Lawton — that was the agent’s name — told 
me that when he heard the racket he went to 
the waiting room door and saw a fellow with 
his hat in his hand and without an overcoat, 
run through the doorway at the foot of the 
stairs that led down from the telegraph quar- 
ters. I told him who it was, and what was 
the trouble, and was wondering how we could 
find him, when Lawton grabbed me by the 
arm and said to come on, that would be easy. 
We could follow his tracks in the snow if we 
started soon enough. Lawton had a good head 
on him. Funny, but I never thought of the 
tracks. 

“Sure enough, from the stair door, the foot- 
prints of a man broke the smooth surface of 
the snow out across the depot platform. It 
was plain from the distance between the tracks 
that Conner was running, so Lawton called 
to come on and started off on a trot. I am 
not much of a footracer myself, but I man- 
aged to waddle along behind Lawton all right 
while he set the pace. The tracks were easy 
to follow. What passengers got on and off 
the late passenger train did not cut up the 
snow any west of the depot, and the tracks 
circled off west from the depot, a trail easy to 
see in the hazy moonlight. 


94 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

‘‘We followed them west to the yards, about 
a quarter of a mile. There we had a little 
trouble because some of the night trainmen, 
coming off their runs, had tracked up the snow 
at the yard end. But Lawton seemed to have 
the instincts of a trail hound, and he soon had 
the ‘scent,’ and lurched off at an angle from 
the right of way, all the time waving his hand 
for me to come on. I puffed out for him to 
go slower, as I was just about winded, so we 
settled down to a walk. 

“It was plain that the leery operator had hit 
for the open. In my estimation this made it 
all the more apparent that he had gone wrong 
in the head, so we decided to follow the trail 
to its end if it took all night. On and on we 
plowed, across fields, across gullies, up hills, 
through bushes, till I thought I would have to 
give up the ghost, but I managed to keep my 
propellers moving. It was plain that Conner 
was making faster time than we were, because 
he was taking about one stride to my two. 
If Lawton had been alone he probably would 
have run him down in short meter, but I was 
too fat for that kind of steeplechasing — a 
steady walk was fast enough for me. We 
trudged on through the snow for half an hour 
at least. The cold nipped our ears. Occa- 
sionally a rabbit started off from under our 
feet, and once we kicked into a covey of quails 
that whirred off into the night with a sudden 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 95 

roar that made my heart jump up and shake 
hands with my thorax. Once, right at a 
barbed wire fence, Lawton surprised me by 
stopping suddenly. He bent over and scru- 
tinizing the ground closely, ‘Look here,’ he 
said, ‘that chump didn’t see the fence, and 
butted into it.’ 

“It was plain that Conner had walked into 
the fence and the recoil had sent him back full 
length on the snow. We suspected he had cut 
himself on the barbs, because after that we oc- 
casionally noticed dark spots on the snow that 
we took for blood. 

“We must have traveled three or four miles 
when the tracks led us through a little strip 
of woodland, down across a frozen creek. As 
we climbed up the opposite bank, Lawton 
again stopped and waited for me to catch up, 

“ ‘See that print? Conner sat down to rest, 
or give out and fell down, one of the two,’ 
Lawton suspected, because of the depression 
in the snow. 

“We went a hundred rods or so further, and 
another impression in the snow showed that 
Conner had again fallen. ‘He’s getting fagged 
out,’ Lawton said. ‘See how zigzag his steps 
are now?’ 

“It was evident the poor devil was almost 
exhausted. Another hundred rods had been 
covered. Lawton suddenly stumbled as 
though avoiding to step on something. He 


96 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

waved his hand with a sudden motion, shov- 
ing me off the path, and said, Took out! 
Don’t step on him.’ 

‘‘We were still in the woods. It was not 
as light as on the open prairie, but by looking 
closely I could see a man’s form lying face 
downward in the snow. The falling flakes 
had almost covered him since he fell. In an 
instant Lawton had raised the unconscious 
man to a sitting posture and shook him in 
effort to revive him, but Conner didn’t open 
his eyes. We then waited a minute, hardly 
knowing what to do. I never felt so lonely 
in all my life as I did that minute, when I 
looked about me in the frigid timber and saw 
those stark, bare trees all about me, and not a 
sound anywhere save the gentle rustle of the 
falling snow as it brushed against the 
branches. 

“The long walk had warmed me up con- 
siderably about the body, but we couldn’t help 
knowing it was mighty cold. Afterwards we 
found that the thermometer dropped to twenty 
below zero that night, and I have been thank- 
ful ever since that the wind wasn’t blowing. 
If it had been I don’t believe any of us three 
would ever have gotten back to town without 
being carried in as chunks of ice and jobs for 
the undertaker. It came close enough to that 
the way it was. And yet had the wind been 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 97 

blowing we might have kept track of the di- 
rections a little better than we did. 

‘‘Well, our friend Conner was in a pretty 
bad fix, we could see right away. His head 
hung down limp on his neck, and we couldn’t 
rouse him. I was down on my knees, rubbin’ 
Conner’s hands to beat the band, when Law- 
ton jumped up with an exclamation that like 
to scared me to death. ‘What luck!’ he joy- 
fully exclaimed, and he reached his hand to his 
hip pocket as though he were going to pull a 
six-shooter. He had me guessing for a min- 
ute. I was about to ask him what he was 
going to shoot, when, after considerable fum- 
bling, he pulled from his hip-pocket a pint 
flask. 

“ ‘That’s full of whiskey,’ he said. ‘J^st 
the thing. I’d forgot all about having it.’ And 
right then was the only time I ever thanked 
the Lord that some men believe in drinking 
whiskey. 

“We turned Conner’s pale, sunken face sky- 
ward; I held his mouth open, and Lawton 
poured three or four swallows of whiskey 
down his goozle. It was then we first no- 
ticed that his right cheek was covered with 
blood. There was a ragged, shallow gash 
across it where the barbed wire had snagged 
him. When I let go his head, it fell like a 
sack of meal to his breast. Gee, I felt blue. 
We could feel Conner’s heart beat, and he 


98 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

breathed lightly, but we couldn’t wake him. 
I took off my big overcoat and wrapped Con- 
ner up in it, and we found his hat half-hidden 
in the snow. Then we poured some more 
whiskey down him, and he began to warm up 
— sort o’ held his head up and pursed his lips. 
Finally he opened his big, stary eyes and 
blinked them uncertainly. We spoke to him. 
He looked at me, and then at Lawton, his eyes 
dropped, and he tried to say something, but we 
couldn’t understand. He soon looked up 
again, and in a draggy voice he mumbled : 
‘That you, Mac? Where in ’ll am I, Mac?’ 

“We tried to tell him he was all right. At 
length he got to feelin’ pretty spry for a dead 
man, and all of a sudden he seemed to recall 
the reason for running away, and began moan- 
ing about that lap-order at Kenton. We just 
couldn’t keep him quiet. 

“ ‘You won’t tell where I am, ’ll y’, Mac ? 
I’ll just quit m’ job, but I do’n wan’ ’em t’ fin’ 
me. You won’ tell ’em, will y’, Mac?’ he 
begged, and had the haunted expression about 
the eyes that made me shudder. I assured 
him I wouldn’t tell, and then he wanted to 
know about the wreck. I tried to tell him 
there was none, just to pacify him, and he 
said, ‘O ! wha’ d’ y’ wan’ t’ lie t’ me for, Mac r 
I got th’ message; said it was a bad ’un. And 
it was all my fault’ He cried like a child. 
He insisted there was a wreck, so I let him 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 99 

have his way, and told him no one was Hurt, 
though. Well, that seemed to ease his mind a 
whole lot. Of course it was all made up on 
my part. Yet he kept up a sort of half-de- 
lirious mumble, grieving to himself about lap- 
orders, lap-orders and railroad wrecks. 

started back to town, but Conner didn’t 
want to go. We stood him up, and he would 
lay down on us every time he got a chance, so 
I just took him up in my arms and carried him, 
and Lawton leading the line of march, we be- 
gan retracing the tracks back to town. 

“We hadn’t gone far when I noticed that 
Lawton was having a hard time finding the 
trail. Sometimes he would stop and look 
down close to the snow. Finally he stopped 
short and said : 'Mac, we’re in it. Snow’s cov- 
ered the tracks all up.’ From the way Law- 
ton spoke I was certain he was worried. He 
asked me if I knew the country, and I had to 
tell him I didn’t know any more about the 
way the land lay than a mule knows about 
geography. He studied a while, and re- 
marked: “Well, now, I believe Connor struck 
off northwest from town. Which way’s north, 
Mac?’ with a sort of troubled quaver in his 
voice. 

“Right then I got a full apprehension that 
we were lost on the prairie, and I tell you it 
was a mighty mean sensation, too. I made 


LoFG. 


loo The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

a guess at the directions, and pointed where I 
thought north ought to be. 

“ ‘Nop,' said Lawton. ‘Believe it’s off that 
way.’ We differed about thirty degrees, but I 
imagined Lawton was more liable to be right 
than I was, so I told him to lead off. 

“If you ever carried a man, you perhaps 
know something about what kind of a propo- 
sition it is. As I said a while ago, Conner 
was a featherweight, but that night he felt as 
heavy as an elephant to me. We took turns 
carryin’ the poor devil, and had been trudgin’ 
along quite a while, when Lawton brought the 
crowd to a stop for overhauling. He was feel- 
ing one of his ears, and turning to me : ‘Mac, 
said he, ‘my right ear’s froze.’ He then felt 
of mine, and asked if I could feel it. He said 
he pinched them, but it was all news to me. 
I couldn’t feel it. My ears were frostbitten, 
and Conner’s, Gee! his ears were swollen up 
twice their natural size, and his nose looked 
frozen, too. None of us had gloves. My 
hands were as numb as so much wood. 

“We decided to walk Conner. Each took a 
little drag on the whiskey flask, and that 
whipped us up a good bit. We had to work 
out old Conner, or he would have frozen to 
death on our hands. So each put a shoulder 
under one of Conner’s arms, and went on, 
Lawton directin’ the way. 

“The position was powerfully uncomforta- 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. loi 

ble to me, because I was a bit taller than either 
of the other fellows. Conner was in a half- 
stupor, but kept his feet moving most of the 
time. Often he would want to sink down, 
and Lawton would jab him in the ribs and 
shake him like a terrier would a rat, and it 
had a good effect. 

“Well, the long and short of it was, we were 
just as much lost as Little Bo-Peep’s wander- 
ing sheep. There were might}^ few farm 
houses about this old burg then. The country 
was mostly open, with a good many fences 
widely scattered. Generally the fences were 
around big cattle ranges, and a fellow could 
travel miles and miles at a time without run- 
ning into any barbed wire. 

“After an hour or more of weary traveling 
we ran on to a wire fence. Then, fifty feet the 
other side of it, was another fence running 
parallel with it, and we were mighty happy 
over the fact that we had found a road. The 
question now was, which was the way to town ? 
Fact is, we found out the road didn’t lead to 
town at all, but ran north and south, parallel 
with town. We didn’t know straight up about 
directions right then, and Lawton and I both 
realized it with a lost, creepy sensation. 

“‘Which way, Mac? We’ll probably find 
a house along the road somewhere,’ Lawton 
asked, after reaching the roadway. 

“ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘we’ll have to trust to luck. 


102 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

I broke off a couple of stems from a nearby 
shrub, and with fingers as numb and cold as 
iceboxes, I held the twigs to Lawton and said : 
‘You draw, and if you get the short one, it’s 
that way, and the long one will mean the 
other.’ Lawton drew the short one, and we 
started out again in accordance with the draw. 
By this time the moonlight was pretty nearly 
all gone, and the snow fall was letting up. We 
were trudging then through about six inches 
of snow, and our feet were wet as sop, for it 
don’t make any difference how cold it is, the 
snow will melt on a fellow’s shoes when he 
is walkin’. I was getting mighty cold and 
numb. My ears had frosted up and popped, 
so had Lawton’s. As for Conner, he would 
have frozen stiff as a board long before if we 
hadn’t dragged him along and made him ex- 
ercise, whether he wanted to or not, and kept 
him bundled up well. 

“Pretty soon I began calling for rest every 
few minutes. My eyes shut voluntarily; the 
fatigue was on me good and hard. Soon I 
wanted to lie down in the snow and be allowed 
to rest just a minute, but Lawton wouldn’t 
let me. I guess he realized I was in that 
partly froze-to-death stage, and he insisted that 
I put on my overcoat and let Conner take his 
(Lawton’s), but I fought against it. I could 
hardly lug myself, let alone that big overcoat. 
Lawton seemed to stand it first rate, but I was 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 103 

too fat. He was a lithely-built fellow, weighed 
about one-sixty, I guess, and was somewhat 
of an athlete. I noticed that Lawton didn’t 
take any more of the whiskey, because there 
was only a little left, but every once in a while 
he would stimulate Conner and me with a 
swig. After the liquor was all gone, it looked 
like a pretty hopeless case for Conner and my- 
self. 

“We saw readily that we were not on the 
way to town. It seemed like we had traveled 
enough to reach town half a dozen times, so 
when we came to a crossroads, Lawton said 
we would try our luck again, and we turned 
to the right. Lawton looked at his watch and 
it was then after three o’clock. Lawton was 
due back to the ticket office to sell tickets for 
the 3.30 o’clock train, but the ticket office 
wasn’t opened again that night, and Lawton 
heard about it later, too. I had to do some 
tall ‘personal work’ with the officials to con- 
vince them Lawton should not be fired. He 
managed to hold his job. 

“I don’t remember much about • that trip 
after we turned the corner, but Lawton told 
me about it afterwards. I remember Conner 
was delirious as a fool, and at times would 
fight and curse and shout, but Lawton man- 
aged to keep him on his feet by carryin’ him 
and draggin’ him part of the time. Lawton 
already had made me quit helpin’ Conner, be- 


104 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

cause I certainly was ‘all in’ myself. I have 
a faint recollection of how once I went down 
in a heap in the snow, and it felt just like a 
feather bed. If any one had offered me a 
thousand to get up right then, I wouldn’t have 
done it. I have since learned that that condi- 
tion is a very dangerous state for a cold, lost 
man, as it is the last stage before freezing to 
death, unless some one arouses him. That was 
where Lawton shined. He kicked me and beat 
me, he afterwards told me, but I could hardly 
feel him. He says he slapped me in the face 
and churned me like he would a puchin’ bag, 
and I just cussed a blue streak and finally 
jumped up and was going to whip him for not 
leavin’ me alone. When I did get up, though, 
Lawton decoyed me on. ‘Mac,’ he said, ‘see 
that house right over there with a light in it? 
Come on, we’re pretty near there now. Come, 
on, old boy.” 

“And Lawton says I told him I saw it, too, 
and jogged along, seemed like a hundred years, 
and Lawton again pointed out the phantom 
house and told me the house was just a little 
way ahead, so I fagged on. Lawdon was just 
house. He just tried to make me think one 
running the razzle on me. He didn’t see any 
was near, to encourage me to stay on my feet. 
But the next time I went down in the snow 
all the beating and pummeling and shovin’ 
snow down my neck didn’t arouse me. 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 105 

“Lawton stretched me out on my big over- 
coat, lay Conner, in Lawton’s overcoat, flat 
on top of me, in cold storage, I guess, thinking 
we would sort o’ keep each other warm, and 
I think he did the right thing. Both Conner 
and I were in a sound stupor, most frozen to 
death, and Lawton, the brave little chap, had 
to leave us there, and he went on, hoping 
against hope, to find some one to help us out. 

“Luck did come our way once that night, 
for a few hundred yards ahead of where we 
corpses were stacked up, Lawton ran on to a 
farmer’s house. He managed to rouse the 
household, and after a brief explanation on 
Lawton’s part he and two men came after and 
took care of us. 

“Lawton wasn’t froze up very badly except 
his ears and hands. They took Conner and 
me, stripped all our clothes off, stretched us 
out on the cold kitchen floor, and after they 
got the blood to circulating enough to bring 
me to my senses, Lawton and the whole blessed 
family were rubbing Conner with snow, as 
though they were tryin’ to scour our hides off. 
Lawton said they worked with Conner most 
of the night before he came around. After I 
came to they poured some hot drinks down my 
throat, wrapped me up in blankets, and next 
day I was feelin’ a whole lot more like a man 
than an icicle, but still pretty bummy. After 
we had been in the railroad hospital three 


io6 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

days, I believe, they ‘O K’d’ me, and I was 
feelin’ myself again. But it went hard with 
Conner. They had to amputate one of his 
legs, it was so badly frozen. The doctor said 
he was a nervous wreck — not crazy; his brain 
wasn't permanently affected. 

“By the time Conner was able to leave the 
hospital he plainly showed his oats. While 
there he had plenty of time to rest, and he 
fattened up considerably, until he outgrew that 
ghost-like appearance. The office men raised 
a fifty-dollar purse, got him a pass to Cali- 
fornia, and the old boy really took a pleasure 
trip. He said it was the first vacation he had 
taken in six years. 

“Oh, yes, and about that lap-order and 
wreck. There wasn’t any wreck at all. I 
investigated the matter thoroughly, just out 
of curiosity, and learned from Kenton that no 
message about a lap-order had been sent from 
or received at Kenton. It was wholly a 
fabrication of Conner’s upset brain; think he 
just took a little nap and dreamed it all so 
vividly he thought it was true. Anyhow, 
that’s the way the head doctor at the hospital 
figured it. You know Conner didn’t have any 
business making train orders anyhow. He 
was only an operator then. 

“Well, to get around to the point of the 
story, the operators’ tobacco-breakin’ experi- 
ment on Conner was a sheer failure. That 


The Lap-Order at Kenton. 107 

‘No Smoking Allowed’ sign mysteriously dis- 
appeared right away after Conner’s runaway 
in the snow storm. The next time we saw 
Conner was the day he came back from Cali- 
fornia. When he flitted into the upstairs of- 
fice on his crutches, he was, as ever, smokin’ 
his old cob pipe, and before he even had said 
‘Hello !’ or we were aware he was in the room, 
he called out happily, ‘Say, Mac, what’s gone 
with that smokin’ sign?’ 

“What impressed him most on entering the 
room was the sign’s absence. Of course, 
greetings were in order, and after a prolonged 
bunch of ‘Hello, Conner,’ was strung out, one 
of the operators, in a matter-of-fact tone, said, 
‘Why, Conner, the superintendent reconsid- 
ered his order and had the sign taken down. 
You can smoke your old pipe till the roof 
burns off.’ 

“And Conner did, too. He took back his 
old trick and evidently because of the ‘super- 
intendent’s’ withdrawal of the ‘no smoking’ 
order, Conner was the happiest man on the 
division, and what made him happier yet was 
the present the boys donated of one dozen 
corncsjb pipes and enough straight-cut to keep 
his old weed-burner hot for the next six 
months. It was certainly a graceful way of 
acknowledging their failure to break him of 
the smoking habit. 

“The last time I saw Conner was several 


lo8 The Lap-Order at Kenton. 

years ago. He v/as then dispatcher on the 
Santa Fe at Topeka, and I might as well add 
that he was still puffin’ away on an old cob 
smoker; was lookin’ well for Conner, and said 
he was taking a month’s vacation every year.” 


THAT ‘‘SPOTTER’^ DEAL. 


A NUMBER of trainmen were congregated 
in the trainmen’s lobby of a Santa Fe division 
point. Time never hangs very heavy around 
a crowd of railroad men. Now, as usual, 
their various experiences of out-of-ordinary 
nature were the subject of conversation. Two 
of the company had recently been “up on the 
carpet” for insubordination. Conductor Ef- 
fingham, an “old timer,” culminated the tale of 
the unfortunates’ grievances by moralizing. 
As half the railroad man’s battle he laid down 
in his original way, the sound, unpretentious 
advice : “Well, I never did have much trouble 
with the brass collars. I always found it was 
the best plan to let the officials do the talkin' 
and the balkin’, and for me to swaller any- 
thing they had to say, and look as wise as an 
owl masticating brain food.” 

All agreed, and then the conversation took 
a happy turn, because Conductor Tom Ranson 
turned it. He ventured, in reply to Effing- 
ham : “Yes, but you came so near having 
trouble over that ‘spotter’ deal out at Dodge 


1 10 


That ^^Spotter’^ Deal. 

City that you lost about a month’s growth, I 
have a sneakin’ idea. Remember that deal?” 
And Effingham and the questioner laughed up- 
roariously. ‘Tffy” needed no further ex- 
planation to bring vividly back to mind that 
‘^spotter” deal. 

'‘Well, sir, Tom, that certainly was the most 
seriously comical thing that I was ever mixed 
up in. Let’s see; you were braking for me 
then, weren’t you, Tom? Yes, you rascal! 
You were the one that backed me into that 
racket,” jokingly explained Effingham, and 
Ranson, laughing in his sleeve, acquiesced. 

It was a story that never had been told. 
That was a strict agreement. Had it been 
noised about enough to have reached the ear 
drums of the officials it might have echoed 
back in the shape of two sets of discharge 
papers. 

“But that was ten years ago, wasn’t it, Tom ? 
Twelve? You sure? Yes, I guess you’re 
right. Goodness, time goes faster than money. 
Yes, it was thirteen years ago next month 
when I took out my first train, and I had just 
about a year’s whiskers when we landed on 
that spotter. Now, Tom, I see we’ve got 
these fellers’ curiosity all worked up to high 
pressure. If you say it isn’t breakin’ our 
promise to keep that mum, I’ll tell it. Of 
course there is no danger in it now, it was so 
long ago.” 


Ill 


That “Spotter” Deal. 

So ‘Tffy’’ started the fireworks. 

“Well, that ‘spotter’ deal, as Tom mentioned, 
happened way out on the Western Grand Di- 
vision. I was running out of Dodge City, and 
Tom was my head brakeman. In those old 
days Western Kansas was certainly wild and 
woolly. There was a terrible lot of drinkin’ 
going on among the men. No, they didn’t 
drink — they all belonged to the funnel gang — 
and I’ll admit that ‘spotters’ were a mighty 
necessary evil to weed out the booze soppin’ 
broncho busters and desperadoes who chased 
in off the prairies and tried their hand at rail- 
roading. Tom, you remember the time old 
‘Shorty’ Kraus got on a high lonesome and 
shot up the town? O! there were some bold, 
bad men on the Santa Fe in those old days. 
‘Shorty’ had the police and most of the good 
citizens in the tall timber until his ammunition 
gave out. Kraus was a brakey, and the last 
bad break he made was to shoot the air on the 
main street so full of holes you could strain 
milk through it. 

“But about that ‘spotter.’ I’ll admit I 
wasn’t on to the ropes any too good then. I 
was just a young head, and didn’t know a 
‘spotter’ from a Hamburg steak. I had caught 
a passenger run that day. Old Bill Simpson 
brought the train into Dodge from Newton. 
Most of you ‘old timers’ remember old 
‘Sambo.’ He was honestly the biggest clown 


II2 


That ‘^Spotter” Deal. 

I ever saw running- at large, outside of a cir- 
cus. Bill was a joker from Jokersville. Well, 
when I met Bill that day and saw the grin in 
the corner of his eyes, I knew something was 
up. Bill had a kind of wolf-in-sheep’ s-duds 
smile that one could read like a book. 

“Well, I asked Bill what was ” 

“Ah, come in out of the rain, Tffy,’ and 
tell ’em about that lop-eared ‘spotter,’ or I 
will,” interrupted Conductor Ranson impa- 
tiently. 

“Don’t run ahead of your orders there, 
young fellow,” cautioned Effingham. “Don’t 
you know we haven’t told ’em about that bank 
bustin’ at Garden City yet. Well, as I was 
sayin’, Sampson came up beaming like a kid 
with his first bunch of firecrackers, wrapped 
his lanky arm two or three times around my 
neck — that was a confidential way Sampson 
had of meetin’ a feller — and from the way he 
sputtered close up to my ear, I guessed it that 
his mouth must have been some relation to an 
electric fountain. He confided to me that 
there was a sure ’nough ‘spotter’ on the train 
and told me to come take a peep at . him 
through the coach door. 

“ ’Course I got curious and followed suit. 
Bill went on to tell me how I could always 
know that ‘spotter,’ no matter whether he was 
disguised as a quack doctor or a Hottentot. 
His lop ear gave ’way on him. And, true 


That ^^Spotter” Deal. 113 

enough, the ‘spotter’s’ right ear hung out from 
the side of his head like a full-blown flag at 
half mast. That day the old boy had on a 
face full of whiskers and a head of hair, all so 
red he couldn’t walk down the middle of the 
track without giving the danger signal. I 
never would have guessed it, but Bill said the 
hair and whiskers were false, and Bill knew. 
So you see, with all this artificial plumage the 
old ‘spotter’ was a mighty good imitation of a 
suspicious character. 

“And now about that bank robbery. You 
see, all the officers were lookin’ for suspicious 
characters. That’s why the ‘spotter’ got his 
foot in it. The bank at Garden City, second 
county seat west of Dodge, had been touched 
up for about $10,000 the night before by bank 
robbers; blew the daylights and night watches 
out of the safe, and made a clean git-away with 
the goods. ’Course the ‘spotter’ didn’t know 
about the bank robbery. Y’ see, old Bill 
thought the ‘spotter,’ in th’ kind of a garb he 
was rigged out in would be a good picture of 
a bank robber, so he didn’t do a thing after 
plannin’ his scheme, but slip a piece of paper 
in a plain envelope into the ‘spotter’s’ pocket 
without him a-knowin’ it. The writin’ on the 
slip of paper read somethin’ like Ibis : ‘Mike — 
We made a clean haul at Garden C. last night 
for $10,000. Come down to La Junta to help 


1 14 That “Spotter” Deal, 

me spend it. Come Friday. Keep mum. 

S PUDGE.’ 

‘‘Of course Bill had put the letter in the 
‘spotter’s’ clothes before the train reached 
Dodge City. There he told me the rest of his 
plot was to wire the marshal of Garden City, 
who was lookin’ hard for bank robbers, to meet 
the train and take charge of a suspicious char- 
acter that was on it. I sort o’ backed down 
on the proposition ; was a little leery of it ; but 
Tommy, there, as I told you a while ago, told 
me where to head in, ’nd we shoved through 
that plot as fast as a president’s special on a 
greased track. 

“So I chased one over the wire to the Gar- 
den City marshal something like this : ‘May be 
bank robber aboard. Meet No. 5 at Garden 
City.’ And the marshal sure was there, ‘John- 
nie on the spot,’ at Garden City. He told me 
very wisely that he was expectin’ the robbers 
to double back on their tracks and blow right 
back from where they started. The marshal 
put on such confidential airs about how he 
knew he would catch the robbers, that I 
couldn’t hardly keep from laughin’ in his face. 
Well, I pointed out the lop-eared ‘spotter’ to 
the officer as the suspected bank robber, and 
Mr. Spotter was suddenly in the hooks of the 
law, and in spite of his windy protests he was 
hustled off to the county jail, after the mashal 
had incidentally jerked off the false hair and 


That “Spotter” Deal. 115 

whiskers just to show the ‘spotter’ he was a 
counterfeit article. 

“ ’Course I wasn’t supposed to know any- 
thing alx)Ut him bein’ a ‘spotter,’ so I kept 
mum and refused to interfere. And, don’t y’ 
know, those false whiskers and the letter Samp- 
son put in the ‘spotter’s’ pocket came mighty 
near sending the ‘spotter’ over the road for 
bank robbery. The railroad brass collars in- 
sisted on his release, and the Garden City offi- 
cers were bound to try and convict him for dy- 
namiting their bank. I think he managed to 
prove an alibi by showing that he hung out 
at a Newton hotel the night of the bank rob- 
bery. But, anyhow, they (I gueso I mean we) 
made it so warm for the ‘spotter’ on the bank 
robbery deal that he never flung his flop ear 
to the breeze on that division again. 

“But where our grief came in was about 
that letter. It was plain to the officials that 
it all was a put-up job on the ‘spotter,’ and as 
Sampson and I had charge of the train while 
the detective was on it, it was up to us to ex- 
plain. But we were in hot water plum up to 
our eyes, and when it came to a show down, 
to save me from unpleasant complications, old 
Bill Sampson, the honest old soul, went and 
’fessed up like a good Injun. You bet yer 
calf skins Bill and his job parted company. 
Bill was fired so high he didn’t light again on 
the Santa Fe. Pretty costly joke; but Bill 


ii6 That “Spotter” Deal. 

was game about it; always said he got his 
money’s worth out of his hocus game, and y’ 
bet your mother’s jewelry, the ‘spotter’ did, 
too. And that’s the fairy tale about me and 
the ‘spotter.’ ” 

“Yes, and y’ left off the sequel,” added Tom 
Ranson, apparently confident that the best part 
of the story had been omitted. 

“You’ve got the right of way. Tommy; go 
ahead. What’s the rest of it?” consented Ef- 
fingham. 

“You didn’t tell them what old Bill Samp- 
son’s doin’ now.” 

“Last I heard of Bill he was switchin’ on the 
Frisco out of Kansas City. Isn’t he there 
yet?” asked Effingham. 

“Naw,” bawled Tom R. “Old Sampson is 
a ‘spotter’ himself out at Denver, on the Santa 
Fe.” 


THE FOREMAN’S ORDER. 


Big-headed, domineering and loud-mouthed, 
Division Foreman R. T. Ruggley was the most 
disliked man on the division. It was easy 
figuring how he got his job — he was the mas- 
ter mechanic’s brother-in-law ; but how he 
managed to hold it, even in view of the official 
position of his kin was a problem the engine 
men were unable to see through. Their solu- 
tions of the whole situation were identical — 
the division foreman’s head ought “to go off.” 

Ruggley, before he stepped into the division 
foreman’s shoes, was an engineer with a bad 
record. But it is ever the same in railroading. 
The man with a pull will inevitably outstrip 
the fellow with competence as his only pro- 
moter. The engine men wanted Engineer 
Jaques to get the job, and it was a contest be- 
tween Jaques and Ruggley — a one-sided con- 
test. Ruggley had a pull; Jaques didn’t. 
Ruggley and Jaques never did have any love 
lost between them. Jaques and all the rest of 
the men who cared a Snap for their jobs, would 
go a block out of their way to avoid having 


ii8 The Foreman’s Order. 


any words with the division foreman. To this 
general rule, however, old Bill Coleson once 
proved to be an exception. He was a big six- 
footer of Swedish descent, who never had 
very much to say. Just once Coleson was so 
overprovoked in an interview with the fore- 
man that he didn’t care whether he had a job 
or not, and hauled off and flogged Foreman 
Ruggley in so decisive a manner that for a 
week afterwards one of Ruggley’s eyes looked 
like the moon in total eclipse. Coleson pum- 
meled the foreman and didn’t demand any in- 
vestigation either, he just quit his job. But 
as for Jaques, silence was king when Ruggley 
was in sight. 

It was the first week in September when 
Ruggley and Jaques had the regulation ‘‘few 
words and parted,” all because the engineer 
positively refused to go over the division with 
a train and the 877; but he was well aware 
that the step he took was the right. The 877 
was a new switch engine going west for serv- 
ice at a division point. As were most switch 
engines, it had been built without any trailers, 
and Jaques informed the foreman that he 
would as soon ride an engine without a throttle 
as pull a train on an engine like the 877 with 
no trailer wheels. In Jaques’s time he had seen 
it tried. With no trailer wheels the engine is 
liable to rock like a “teeter-totter” board if she 
is put to any speed; and that means danger, 


The Foreman’s Order. 119 

However, it was up to Jaques either to take 
out the 877 or send in his time, and Jaques 
asked for his time. The engineers on the en- 
gine board were shoved up a notch, and 
Tommy Crayton caught the run with the 877. 
Tommy was a young head. He had been run- 
ning an engine but eight months, and was one 
of the most promising young men on the road. 
However, it never had been Tommy’s expe- 
rience to run an engine without trailers. He 
did not know the “teeter-totter” tricks any 
more than the division foreman did. Switch 
engines usually went over the road “light” — 
without any trains; but in this case the fore- 
man explained. It was the rush season and 
not a pound of power could be wasted, so 
Tommy, his fireman and the 877 started out 
ahead of a train while the foreman stalked 
about the engine men’s lobby loudly “glass 
blowing” about the Jaques affair and insub- 
ordination. Jaques’s discharge had been filed, 
and would be recorded at headquarters before 
the 877 reached the end of the division. 

Ruggley was still in the engine-men’s room 
a half an hour later when his clerk brought in 
a message that made the foreman’s cheek turn 
pale as he glanced over the slip of paper. He 
did not read the message to the engine men in 
the room at the time. He stopped talking and 
left the room immediately. It was not long, 
however, till the contents of the message were 


120 


The Foreman’s Order. 


generally known about the division point. 
Some said they would not believe it. When 
Jaques heard the news he said little, but his 
heart bled, and at the same time turned cold 
with wrath. Bled for poor Tommy Crayton 
and turned cold with wrath at the fool foreman 
who ordered an engine crew over the road 
with a train and the 877. 

Jaques went to the operator’s room and 
hovered over the ticking brass, awaiting fur- 
ther news from Tommy. It came soon. The 
message read: ‘^Crayton will die. He asks 
for his wife. Inform her so she can come on 
No. III. Fireman Hottle jumped; his leg 
was broken.” The operator handed Jaques the 
message, and only said, “You tell her, Jaques.” 
The engineer stood still, rereading the mes- 
sage, then walked away slowly and repeatedly 
drew his coat sleeve across his eyes. Jaques 
did his duty by breaking the news, but it was 
as hard a task as he ever did. He didn’t go 
to the wreck, but in his mind he could see 
that pathetic picture ; how the little spark 
of a brave life lingered, flickered and went 
out. 

Tommy’s funeral was held two days later, 
but Ruggley did not attend. He was out of 
town on business. At the investigation over 
the wreck, Jaques, who until then had held his 
peace, appeared as the principal witness, al- 
though he had been duly discharged by Fore- 


The Foreman’s Order. 


I2I 


man Ruggley. Tommy Crayton’s fireman, of 
course, was not able to attend the investiga- 
tion. A deposition from him had been pre- 
pared by a stenographer and was in evidence 
at the “kangaroo court” before the officials. 
It related how on that fatal trip the 877 began 
to rock, up and down, and almost before they 
were aware of the motion the locomotive left 
the track at a curve and headed into the ditch. 
The engine rolled over, down the embank- 
ment and poor Tommy Crayton, with hand 
on the air lever, was caught at the bottom of 
the pile. As the engine rolled off one side of 
the track the fireman jumped the opposite way 
and got off easy with a broken leg. 

There was some questioning among the 
court as to who was to blame, until Jaques 
was heard. He gave the officials a few point- 
ers on the necessity of trailer wheels on road 
engines; also touched on his own case — his 
being fired. The officials then made a clean 
breast of it. Full responsibility for the wreck 
was laid on Ruggley’s shoulders. The kindred 
ties on which his foremanship was spiked were 
overlooked. Division Foreman Ruggley lost 
his job, — and Jaques? Well, he hasn’t been 
running an engine since Ruggley discharged 
him. Since then Jaques has been the engine- 
men’s boss as Ruggley’s successor. 


THE END. 






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